Beautiful Disaster

Beautiful Disaster Chapter 10

                Cole and I take a step back letting the portrait swing open to reveal a darkened cobblestoned corridor. “Hungrier men first.” I offer jesting my hand forward. 

                “Aye, oi waited too long ter return back ter Toro’s cookin’.”       

                Cole steps through and I follow him into the deep depths of the tunnel. There are separate entry ways to paths that lead nowhere only to get those who accidently stumble up them lost and tramped not knowing their way out. There isn’t any light to emit our way and so we venture through a maze as dark as night. With the silence that deafens the ear it can drive anyone who doesn’t know their way to madness.  

                “Toro said he would put lighting in here.”

                I laugh a topic that’s been argued over too many times. Magic doesn’t work in these tunnels. “But he also knows that it would be a waste of money since we can see perfectly fine in the dark.” We make a turn to the right and after a few minutes I say, “Besides we are almost there. Can’t you hear that?”

                These tunnels were never meant to be created. But I insisted for safety and easy access purposes. Toro was never too happy to begin with to have a portal connected to his business. Over the past years they have proven to be very useful and since we all have learned our way by now it hasn’t been an issue. Even Toro himself began using them.

                The sound of laughter, people’s uproar of lively chatter, glasses clinging, the smell of fresh beer, and Toro’s homemade cooking is nearer than ever. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen an old friend. My body aches from some good o’ times at his lively Irish pub. 

                In the human eye magic is unseen for it cannot be explained nor scientifically proven. It just is. So no one notices as we step out of the very few paintings hanging on the pubs wall. Once through, it then immediately renovates itself back into its original piece.    

                We’re back of the pub where most of all the wooden tables and booths are crowded in. From college students to the people of the elderly, the humans crowd in most of the booths who crackle up a storm of Irish slang chatter. Most are eating Toro’s home-cooked meals; pot-roast sandwiches, whiskey tomato soup, and many other various platters. Beer fills every table, waiters come and go, and T.V.’s mantled on the walls playing a various sports channels. It all swells in my nose renewing a few good old memories.

                The pub is brightened with low amber lights, various pictures and trinkets are randomly mantled on the deep red walls, and wooden flooring that’s beginning to show its age. We weave through the crowd of tables and waiters into the front. Here there are fewer tables and booths with mostly bar goers. The bar is as about as long as the large room. It’s crowded with all the sorts of various glass colors filled with various mixtures and drinks. The entire collection is brightened by backlight igniting many drinkers to fill their brim.

                Wooden stools all line in a row with a men and women filling most of the seats. There are two bartenders ordering up shots, filling up beer glasses, or mixing drinks then sliding it down to its thirsty customer.    

                Toro is one of them for tonight. He’s a big well rounded man with thick skin and a thicker head of red hair. He’s got a large well-curved nose, sharp jaw line, golden brown eyes, and he looks of a man who just got out of the military whose collected scars and a ton of tattoos.

                To the ladies he’s a man of fantasy and dreams come to life of what a man should look like. In coded somewhere in the woman’s handbook, Toro is the kind of man a woman should never approach. Rather wait for him to notice her. Most of the women that come into his pub are here for him. Most have tried and all have failed.