It was an unusual night in the pub. The power went out just after dusk. However, thanks to the generator, the lights were on, and cold beer kept pouring from the taps. It was a rustic old pub, located in a township west of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. Nights In White Satin by The Moody Blues, played from an old school jukebox. It enhanced the relaxed atmosphere.
Nearby an old hippy with long and curly, black and grey hair, complemented with a well-trimmed beard, danced in a haze while sipping liquor on the rocks. Across from him was the pool table where a small group of generic tech natives/millennials played pool a man in his 30's. He appeared to be of Indian heritage and wore a white business shirt with rolled up sleeves.
Three people sat at the bar. A Māori woman in her early fifties. She wore a plain red cap and a blue flannel shirt. She was a weathered looking woman, truck driving type. Alice Walker's The Color Purple paled in comparison to the hard road of her own life.
The woman's face was attractive but scarred from decades of abuse, lacerations, fractured cheek bones, brow ridges and eye sockets, compound fracture of the jaw. When she smiled, her shiny white pearls would light up a darkened room.
They were too good to be true. A trip to Thailand a few years back, gifted her with a full dental restoration that replaced her original set of teeth, knocked out or lost from poor nutrition. She endured 23 years of hardship and abuse until the morning she found him dangling in the backyard from the Nikau tree. How he managed to lift himself onto that old 1977 Ford XC Fairmont GXL, rusting on bricks, was beyond her. Until that moment, she didn't realise how sorrow and relief could be experienced in the same emotional stream of baggage.
Sitting next to her was a large man in his early sixties. He looked like Santa if you shaved his beard and then made him wear old-style blue-collar overalls. He was clearly a farmer who loved to eat well done rump while he drank beer like Shane's mum guzzled Fanta. The two laughed and enjoyed their conversation.
The third person who sat at the bar was a man in the twilight of his forties. He fit the vintage profile of a lone wolf, cowboy gunslinger. He wore brown leather boots and stone wash denim jeans, a prominent belt buckle and a rugged wide brimmed hat. He was a slender man, wavy brown hair and with a slight olive complexion. He took sips of whisky and sneered at the young folks playing pool, making loudmouth noises while pretending to be grownups.
Behind the bar was an old mum and pop couple and a barmaid who was thirty something. She was damaged goods with her push up bra, orange-blonde curly hair and a cake of makeup to hide her tears since childhood. She gave the cowboy a hopeful glance between drying some seven-ounce glasses. She was drawn to such men who were cold, indifferent and destined to break her heart.
And like that the tranquillity of the pub was lost like a fart in a fan factory. The double doors burst open, and a bunch of weirdos rushed in like a tsunami of cosplay vomit…
There was clearly the alpha nerd. He wore a costume of the ghost who walks, old mate Phantom. Bulldog build, jacked up like a gorilla riding a crystal meth suppository.
However, it was the bubble wrap that made the tight purple Lycra a stunning eyesore. One simply should not dirty bulk with burritos and cheese. This big bad bully dork carried a curved short sword smothered in purple, bubble gum goo. Chunks of yellow monkey regurgitation and burgundy sludge were smeared across his face and chest.
He was accompanied by a morbidly fat guy dressed as the Flash and a taller and slightly less fat dude dressed as a Klingon. There was also some guy dressed as the lead protagonist from those XBOX games, who we'll just call 'Chief' to avoid this looking like fan fiction. It's not like the writer clocked the first three games or anything. For the record – the streaming show adaptation was awesome and gone too soon, just like Firefly, the first four seasons of Futurama, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Spaced and oh yes, Space: Above and Beyond … I digress.
Anyway, another bald and somewhat fat guy with a goatee stepped in, wearing a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gi, complemented with an aged blue belt, adorned with six white stripes of tape. He did a commando roll across the pub floor before turning around and commando rolling back to his group. It was a pointless move, as in … it made no sense. He looked almost identical to the chunky phantom-fat-bad-lad, albeit a few decades younger.
There was also a guy in a silk, fire engine red kung fu outfit, complete with a black sash. He danced and pranced around, blocking phantom blows while throwing somewhat uncoordinated punches and kicks into the air. It was strange but he kept asking for 'water' pronouncing the beverage in a long and exaggerated fashion.
He closed and barricaded the doors with a table but not before an Asian woman slipped through with lethal elegance. She had a cold expression. Her hair was long and dark. Two samurai swords were clad in sheaths across her back.