Palm Trees at Last Call

Elias adjusted his baseball cap, the brim stained with sweat from the Florida heat, and signaled the bartender for another whiskey neat. The television above the bar flickered with the Yankees game, ninth inning, two outs—the same game he'd watched every Tuesday for fifteen years, except then Maria had been beside him, stealing sips from his glass and complaining about the umpire's vision.

Now the stool beside him remained empty, occupied only by his neglected phone displaying a text from his doctor: Increase the vitamin D supplements. Your bones need it.

"You going to finish that, or just stare at it all night?" The bartender, a woman with tired eyes and a name tag that read 'CONNIE', gestured to his untouched drink.

Elias finally took a sip, the burn familiar and grounding. Outside, palm fronds rustled in the humid breeze, their shadows dancing across the empty tables. He and Maria had come here on their anniversary, once. She'd worn that red dress, the one that made him remember why he'd fallen in love with her in the first place. They'd talked about opening their own restaurant someday—she'd cook, he'd manage the books.

Instead, he'd taken that promotion. The money had been good, but the seventy-hour weeks had cost him everything else. She'd left three years ago, tired of being married to a ghost who only materialized on holidays and in passing at the refrigerator door.

"Water's free, if you need to slow down," Connie said, sliding a coaster toward him.

Elias shook his head. The game ended. Yankees lost. He stared at his reflection in the darkened television screen—a lonely old man in a baseball cap, drinking alone at a tiki bar, surrounded by palm trees and regrets.

He'd never see forty again. His bones ached when it rained. His daughter hadn't visited in eight months. The vitamins on his bathroom counter mocked him every morning with their cheerful promises of health and longevity.

But the whiskey was still good. The palm trees still swayed. Tomorrow would come, as it always did, relentless and indifferent. Elias raised his glass to no one in particular, and drank.