IҒ ʏᴏᴜ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴋɴᴇᴡ

“Welcome to Brewery 99! Can I get you anything?” Sophie greeted with a friendly smile. She enjoyed the excuse to talk to people that she wouldn’t normally. Mostly because she was too shy to approach many people on her own anyway.

Hazel had just finished her meal, paid it off and got up from her table only to turn around and see that someone was playing the guitar in the restaurant. The whole time, she thought it was just Brewery 99. She never said that she was observant as she wished she was. After giving the tip to her waitress, she dug her hands in her jacket pockets and walked over to the man playing. “I didn’t know this place allowed live action performances,” she said before adding, “at least good ones.”

Changing the tune to a softer one so he could speak over it, Aodán replied, “I don’t count this as a performance. If it was, I’d be getting paid in pints.” Nodding to the single pint on his table, he went on. “Seeing as I’ve got to pay for this drink, clearly I’ve not been hired. Someday, if I’m lucky...”

        the instrument itself would never be something that would get danny’s attention, he had never cared enough for music for that to ever happen nor did he understand how anyone would see an appeal in sounds, but the voice of the guy playing said guitar was enough to attract danny’s (albeit) short attention span long enough to wait for a student to leave to speak to him. “hey—” danny calls out and continues watching intently. “—what if you had a guitar made of super fine strings? would your fingertips get cut off because, uh, they definitely would. those are all of my thoughts, thank you.”

“Oh my god, do you ever shut up?” The outburst left her lips before she could ever filter her words and think twice about spouting them. She had been sitting in a booth for a good hour, trying to work up the nerve to go to Kelton’s, but the chaos of music playing behind her kept her from concentrating. At one point, she might have found it relaxing. Now it just grated on her nerves until she snapped. 

“Sure I do,” he answered with a smile. “When I sleep.” Packing away his guitar and dropping a twenty on the table, he hefted his guitar case under his arm. “I was heading out anyway. Have a good one.”

“are you gonna ‘anyways here’s wonderwall’ us??” it was a joke, carlisle laughing at her own lame self. the brewery was always welcoming of her, she often had her best ideas in here and as someone who appreciated music more than the average she was never one to miss out on listening to aodán. she had managed to keep herself quiet through his session, not interjecting like she usually did with stupid comments and asking him about certain songs. she just wanted to find fun ways to sneak his ideas into her mixes.

Felix had earlier met a young director he had acquainted himself with at the Maine Film Festival for a few rounds of pool. He lost two of the five games that were played, and their conversation quickly progressed to a belligerent political debate. Their meeting was off-putting, and incited Felix to remain at the bar for a few drinks after his companion had left. 

Sipping his second Black Russian, Felix eyes and ears were both drawn to the musician by the windows. He motioned to the guitarist, drink in hand, and called out, “You know any Radiohead?” 

“The most I can credit to myself is knowing who you’re talking about,” Aodán answered as he ceased playing. “Their kind of music’s never been much in my style of performing. I’m more, well, I guess it could be Irish bluegrass. I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to give my style a name before.”

“I spent six weeks in South Carolina before I pulled an Inetta and quit that bitch.” Her hands trembled over the package in her grasp as she told her story; three tiny, wrinkled peppers–carolina reapers–nestled in between saran wrap, she’d had them for awhile now and hadn’t had the balls to even smell them, much less try one.“I got ‘em cause my mama didn’t raise no bitch but–” she shook her head, laughter nervous because she’d heard people had been fucking hospitalized over these. “Try it with me? I can’t go it alone. You jump, I jump.”

“I swear, you hit a point after a 48 hour shift where you feel kind of floaty and caffeine really doesn’t help you at all.”

“Some of the dancers on these competition shows are insane. I could never do anything close to any of what they’re doing. It’s very impressive to watch, not going to lie.”

“Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?” Skylar eyed a passersby in the hopes that they could somehow help with her writers block. “I’m writing an obituary for a family who wanted nothing but a poem for their grumpy grandfather. Granted, I should have told them that poems are not my forte, but here I am, trying to find something that rhymes with rupture. Somehow, in someway, this all went downhill and turned out to be a lot darker than intended. — Do you have any ideas? All I can think of is structure.”

Is that Nico Mirallegro in Woodridge? My mistake, it was just Aodán Cahill, who is twenty six years old and is an Irish language/music teacher. He has been living in Woodridge for five years. Some say he can be dedicated and selfless but also can be introverted and cynical.