by Lucy E. Zahnle

Created on: September 30, 2009

Vignette: The Museum of Misery

A man walks into a bar, but it isn't just a bar. For some people, it is a haven; for others, a prison. For those looking into the demonic world of alcoholism from the outside, it is a museum of misery.

In a dimly lit corner, a predator plies his underage victim with whiskey. Her eyes wide in her overly made-up face, she reaches eagerly for the poison. He smiles, his sharp teeth gleaming.

In another dark alcove, a philandering husband pours his mistress a glass of wine, each splash of the ruby liquid eroding the foundations of his family's life. He laughs, planting drunken kisses on the woman's lips, indifferent to his children's faces plastered against the bar's tinted window as they peer inside, searching for him.

In the back of the tavern, the constant clackety-clack of colliding billiard balls highlights the joking and betting of the players, mostly teenagers, who have gathered there to party. Like high priests of old, they chant a mantra of cursing and swearing as they sacrifice their futures on the altar of the bottle.

On the other side of the bar, in another alcove, a cheating wife kisses her lover, one of many. A bottle of brandy has tipped over between them, its contents flowing like a golden river off the edge of the table, but they are too deep in their cups to notice.

The flowing brandy has washed away all the foundations of the woman's former life, Her husband and children, long gone, are part of a hazy, half-remembered fairy tale world. Once it had been her children's faces pressed against the bar's dirty windows, but they had disappeared long ago. She could not remember when she had seen them last.

In other alcoves, other scenes of tragedy play out for the crowd. A successful man, on his way down, sacrifices everything he has built in the fire of the brandy bottle. An unsuccessful woman has cast away her talents and potential to dance and flirt with John Barleycorn. An old man, his life destroyed, wallows in whiskey, using it to erase painful memories. A teenager, already a criminal at seventeen, scrubs guilt out of his heart with bottle after bottle of beer. All are represented here.

Finally, the bar itself sports a line of lost souls with little hope of redemption. The lady of the evening, who is taking a break from her duties, adorns a stool at one end of the bar, her frozen smile and sad, sparkling eyes issuing invitations to the men.

At the other end, desperately hoping to find a future husband amid the human

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