Dating : Short fiction: “The Old Saloon Hotel”

Afterwards, I descended the creeky old wooden stairs to the smoke-filled barroom below, where men in top hats were puffing on cigars and toasting the marvels of an inevitable steam-powered future. These exact same men were here back in 1993, and reportedly for untold decades before that.

With the tracks having been gone for generations, it’s safe to say that the next train to Prussian Occupation has been canceled until further notice. But these self-made men were the barons of the lumber industry in their day, and so they know a thing or two about perseverance.

I pushed through the swinging saloon doors, took in a full lung of late afternoon air, and said hello to the white-gloved ladies in their ankle-length dresses sitting on the saloon’s front porch. My greeting was met by a cordial (but minimal) response that seemed to really be saying, “And good afternoon to you, but that will be all.” Clearly, I was a bull in the etiquette china shop.

Just before hopping in the Mitsubishi, I paused for a moment and craned my neck skyward, my ears catching the distant whir of helicopters. I knew instinctively that they were on their way to commence their nightly search for Buried Girl.

Some things never change.