This is a piece that I wrote last year, but I like it enough that I might as well put it on the site. There are a few parts that I could brush up, but it’s decent enough as is.
In my younger days as a trader, Spindle was just another small town, the main attractions being a rickety old tavern and a half-stocked general store. Surrounding these two buildings were dozens of run-down shacks, little more than bundles of tarps and corrugated metal, serving as sun-scoured homes for the town’s residents. To the west, several rusted windmills poked out of the craggy hills, and on windy days they would produce sporadic bursts of electricity for the few working machines in town. The dry air was stuffy with faint smoke and dust and seemed to lick up every last drop of moisture from the earth. Rain had been a myth for decades.
People survived here, but not for long nor with much passion. The population of sixty-something would waver up by one or two each month, but always evened out by the end of the year from sickness, starvation, or the occasional shootout. Traders came and went, as did bandits and scavengers and whatever misfortunes following them, but the folks of Spindle never seemed to care much. It was too much effort to do any more than sit in the shade and stare off into the weary distance, and so they never asked for more. Hardships and death were a certainty; to them, it was just a matter of when.
Out of all the resigned, lonely faces I saw every time I passed by that town, Henry’s was the only one that still carried a spark of hope. Henry worked as bartender at The Thirsty Trough, hired after the last two had been beaten to a pulp in a series of drunken brawls. As limited as water was throughout the year, alcohol was always in adequate supply with the right amount of coin. A typical evening would find the Trough buzzing with idle chatter and jaded laughter as folks drank themselves into stupors or joked with Henry as he refilled their drinks. He wasn’t bright—a few cards short of a full deck, as his boss put it—but he was always quick with a grin, eager to please, and made a damn good Wasteland martini. In a desolate place like Spindle, seeing his bright smile was enough for some people to keep going for another day.
Taking the sordid deaths of his predecessors to heart, Henry himself kept alive and sane by knowing when to duck and avoiding drinking completely. Instead, he entertained himself by asking the passing customers about their own lives. If nothing else, Henry was stubborn; he could coax a conversation out of a frying pan if he set his mind to it. A drink or two on the house helped loosen up even the most reluctant of customers, though if his boss found out Henry knew he’d be in for a beating.
And the thing is, once he got someone started, they wouldn’t stop. Everyone had a story to tell, even if it wasn’t all that original. Tales of lost love, ill-conceived revenge, and wanton violence were traded for mugs of ale as Henry leaned over the counter and took in every word with awe. His favorite stories, though, were the ones about the Big Mauve, a settlement so big it took twenty minutes to walk from one end of the city to the other. Every person that had visited told him something new about it: food made out of real meat, buildings that rose two stories high, all the water you wanted to drink. A kindly old trader gifted him a photograph of the city once, a faded blur of bright lights and bustling crowds. In the background of the photo, a neon purple triangle towered over all else, the defining landmark of the settlement.
Henry always dreamed of traveling to the Big Mauve, but he kept his aspirations to himself. There was no way he’d make the journey alone, and no trader was ever willing to take a partner along, echoing the unwritten rule of the Wasteland: trust no one but yourself. It wasn’t until the day that I stumbled into the Trough, bleeding out of my gut, that he ever thought he’d be more than a bartender in the middle of nowhere.
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