In Vino Veritas

Barfly. That's what they call me. But that doesn't really fit if you think about it. I mean, I've always thought of myself as more of a moth. Dusty brown suit, dusty brown hat, fluttering from streetlamp to streetlamp. Barfly is what they call me, cause I go to bars. But they've got the wrong idea. Not for the booze, for the girls.
The room had a faint reek of dirt, compost shoveled into darkened corners, grimy neon blue and green Christmas lights adorning the counter and shelves full of dark bottles and ancient books, muddled together like an ancient alphabet. The "squeak, squeak" of mugs being polished, the rag being dragged over foggy crystal ball glass. To a fly on the wall, I was drinking alone. But I really had a date; she just wasn't here yet.
He passed me a Caesar. He knows me here. The thick juiced swirled in the martini glass while the lemon wedge stood on the side like some kind of fresh animal at a watering hole. I brought the drink to eye-level; the appropriate black shapes writhed within. Tilting my head up, I looked deep into his bisected eyes, my myriad reflections gazing back at me, peeked at his three-fingered hands resting on the counter while the others moved the dirty rag over the dirty cup. I took a gulp. It was good, almost chewy, like cough syrup or jello. It took a bit to hit me, but then: burning, pulling, tearing in my mouth. I coughed blood until he handed me a napkin, coldly wiping the crimson fluid off the counter. I gagged and painfully slowly, a shape emerged from my mouth. A leech, thick and black, dangled from the tip of my tongue, its sucker digging in like a clamp. My eyes teared from the pain. The alcohol hadn't kicked in yet. I reached down for the lemon wedge that had been impaled on the martini's salty rim and tried to make out the letters with blurry eyes. "Carpe Diem." I bit down and feel the citric acid wash over my teeth. The damn thing was having a seizure; it slipped from my lips like a dirty secret and plopped down on the counter. It flailed, stopped moving, and I wrapped it up in a napkin and took another sip.

Hours passed but I did not notice. I was too enthralled by the faint glow of the fluorescent bulbs too bound by the lack of windows. His chitinous hand offered me another drink. I dabbed the tears out of my eyes and cleared my throat.
"I didn't order a drink," I said through bleeding spittle.
"On the house," he croaked.
I took the martini in. The leech bit down but the booze made the pain okay. Of course, the alcohol only made me bleed more. I coughed some bits of muscle onto his apron; he didn't notice.
"Why do you call it a Caesar?"
He turned back so I got a full view of his sleek purple-black exoskeleton, the latticed wings that twitched and contorted as though they had a life of their own. He brought an old book down from where it had been musting next to a bottle of Vodka. He cleared his throat as mine bled out.
"Sour. An opened door, it is all hours. Latin, the glory of old, embossed, carved with hammer and chisel, into its rind. Regal yellow, glory yellow, hero yellow, a plague of yellow splattered across history like a spilt drink. There, here. Lemons, glory."
I looked down on the lemon wedge. The tiny cuneiform hissed "Carpe Diem."
"Who said that?"
He only looked at me expectantly through those goddam' deep, endless, empty eyes and snapped the book shut. He turned back around, gave a buzz of his wings and smiled in his own toothless way. I heard the click of a record needle dropping down onto vinyl as shattered jazz pooled out from behind the counter.
"Sink your teeth in."
Another leech screamed and died under a lemon-fresh heel.
When I woke up, the lights were out. I had no reason to stay. The dust was piled higher than ever. The record was long played through. The leeches were lumped high on a bloody napkin, a fetid pile of fetid worms. I wiped the bloody spittle from my lips, tugged on my coat, sat my hat gingerly on my antennae, threw down a twenty, and fluttered out the door in search of a streetlamp and a girl.