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With a total population of 52 nothing much ever happens here. Most visitors are long distance truck drivers and bikers who patronize the local buisness - Oswalt's Bar and Grill. But on this particular evening the buisness is slow and nearly empty. \n\nA lone young trucker sits at the bar. From his lower lip a lit cigarette hangs, its ashes drop down into the glass of bourbon in his hand. The sound of rain hitting the single pane windows is only diluted by the local country music station broadcasting lightly over the bar's speaker system. \n\nThe door to the buisness springs open breaking the tranquil atmosphere at the bar with the sound of jingling bells and the howl of the cold North Dakota wind. A mysterious individual in a long black coat walks in. The man sitting at the bar takes one tired glance before returning to his bleak self-focused contemplation. \n\nThe mysterious individual hangs up their coat by the door. \n\nThe man at the bar hardly notices as the individual sits at the bench across from him. \n\n\"What'll it be miss?\" Asks the bartender.\n\n\"Can I get a large order of fries and a burger, bloody, with all the fixins'. And a pint of whatever you have on tap?\"\n\n\"One cow eatin' grass, mooing, with fries!\" Shouted the bartender as he took a glass and filled it with beer. \n\n\"Here you go miss,\" said the bartender as he slid the glass across to her, \"the kitchen should have your order ready in ten minutes.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nThe young woman took a sip of the beer, a large white clump of froth stuck to her nose. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand, glancing side to side clearly relieved nobody was around to notice. \n\nShe pulled an ash tray full of smoldering cigarettes from in front of the tired young trucker. She sorted around in the ashes and removed a smouldering cigarette burnt nearly down to its filter. She put it to her lips and inhaled the smoke. \n\nThe young trucker finally looked up from his solitary thoughts.\n\nThe woman blushed in embarrassment as the trucker's speechless gaze fell upon her. She grinned and pushed the ash tray back toward him. \n\n\"Heh, I was trying to quit you see, so I don't have any of my own,\" she said with a timid smile. \n\nThe lit cigarette hanging from the young trucker's lip slipped off and fell into his drink.\n\nThe woman pretended not to have just seen that as the man quickly fished the soggy roll of paper and tobacco from of his glass. \n\n\"I-I've never seen you around here before,\" said the trucker.\n\n\"I'm moving out west, just passing through here tonight. I'll hopefully be in Washington by the weekend. My grandad owns a farm out there you see.\"\n\nThe trucker lit a fresh cigarette.\n\n\"Pardon my curiosity, but you don't look like a farm girl.\"\n\nThe young woman sighed. \n\n\"I worked a tractor since I was eight years old but moved to Chicago at sixteen where I modeled for Carriage and Clarke. You've probably seen my pictures, but well, beauty is as fleeting, so it's over now - everything's over.\"\n\n\"Well I think you're still beutiful.\"\n\n\"It means alot to hear that, but it's not true, not anymore.\"\n\nThe woman turned her head revealing the left side of her face. It was streaked with five long scars.\n\n\"My agent was a nice man when he was sober, but, well, you know the rest. It didn't hurt for long, not, physically.\"\n\nShe turned her face away from the light. \n\nA bell rang several times from the back of the bar. \n\n\"Order up!\" Shouted the cook. \n\nThe bartender brought the food to the young woman. \n\n\"Here you go beautiful,\" he said. \n\nThe young woman forced a smile as a tear dripped from the corner of her eye.\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said in a vain attempt to hide her emotions. \n\nShe took a bite of the burger. A stream of bloody juices flowed from the side of her mouth as she chewed. It glided down one of the scars on her face and fell upon the wooden surface of the bar. \n\nThe trucker watched her as she ate. She glanced at him briefly before looking away. \n\n\"You know,\" said the bartender, \"I use to work in Chicago.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah?\" said the trucker. \n\n\"Yeah, I was a bouncer at the Sphinx Club. Bunch of high rolling no good gangsters at that place, but gosh, the cash I made. Guys slipping me $50, $100 at a time to get 'on the list' so I would let them in.\"\n\n\"Why'd you give it up?\" Asked the trucker. \n\nThe barkeep lifted his shirt revealing four large round scars on his side. \n\n\"Took four rounds from a .38 special one night. Just some young punk with an attitude. After I recovered, I found myself here somehow, I hardly remember how. See nobody comes here because they decide to come here, they find this place by accident on the road to somewhere else - somewhere better.\"\n\nThe young trucker took a drink from his glass and sighed. \n\nThe young woman swallowed what remained of her burger and wiped her face. \n\nThe whole bar became quite but for the light music and sound of rain against the windows. \n\nThe woman picked at the basket of fries and ate several of them. She pushed the basket to the center of the bar. \n\n\"Feel free to take some,\" she said. \n\nThe trucker took a handful and ate them in one bite. \n\n\"You have any interesting life stories to tell?\" Asked the woman to the trucker. \n\nThe trucker swallowed. \n\n\"Stories, me?\"\n\nHe pointed to his hat. \n\n\"I deliver for 'Ed's Bread', easy gig. From Denver to Winnipeg every week.\"\n\n\"Certainly there must be something more than that,\" said the young woman, \"didn't you ever have dreams, tried something unique - even if it didn't work out? \n\nThe man hesitated. He drank the last of his bourbon and smacked the glass down onto the bar. \n\n\"Well, a long time ago, you know - when I was a kid... I use to go fishing with my dad off the South Shore of Long Island.\"\n\n\"Long Island?\" Asked the woman, \"Long Island New York?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the young man, \"we had a house there, and my dad owned a fishing boat - The Scrimshaw, it was 75 feet long and had two huge outriggers. We would go out every summer and compete in fishing competitions, and we would win, we would win alot.\"\n\n\"There had to have been alot of money in that,\" said the bartender. \n\n\"There was.\"\n\n\"How much?\" Asked the woman. \n\n\"Upwards of $10,000.\"\n\n\"$10,000 per win?\"\n\n\"No, per fish. The winner won a pot of usually somewhere around $200,000 - for the biggest and heaviest fish.\"\n\n\"So you were pretty well off.\"\n\n\"Yes, and it was fun too. But dad, he didn't know when to quit. Soon winning meant more to him than everything. So one day we went out for a week long excursion to shores of Nantucket. Everything was fine until it wasn't. The Scrimshaw ran aground on an uncharted rock. The tide was going out so we didn't have much time to think. We began throwing everything overboard to raise the hull off the bottom. We managed to free her but the water was already coming in. My dad sent out the distress call. The coast guard got to us just as the Scrimshaw was going under. To this day I don't know what happened. I saw my dad in the water one moment but then in the next moment he was gone. The coast guard picked me out of the water, but my dad was never found.\"\n\n\"Sharks?\" Asked the bartender.\n\n\"That's what I've always told myself, and I pray it's the reason, but I think he loved that boat so much that he went down with it deliberately - to fulfill a maritime tradition. He was very fond of history and tradition. I never went to sea again after that. I moved away, relocated to the furthest place away from the ocean - so I would never have to see it ever again.\"\n\n\"I don't believe it,\" said the young woman, \"something else must have happened. No father would leave their son like that. When I was sixteen I had to fight my father kicking and screaming before he would let me leave for the city.\"\n\n\"I don't believe he would have done that either,\" said the bartender, \"maybe something from the boat pulled him down as it sank.\"\n\n\"I thought of all this already, but it doesn't matter to me anymore. He's dead, and the sea killed him, and that's that.\"\n\nThe young woman extended her hand and placed it onto the young man's. \n\nThe bartender poured a round of whiskey shots. \n\n\"To forgetting the past.\"\n\nThe two bar patrons raised their glasses.\n\n\"To the future,\" said the young woman.\n\nThey threw their heads back and drank. \n\nThe End. \n\n---‐--------------------\n\nThis is all I could write for now. Hope you enjoyed it. \n\n","description_bbcode_parsed":"It is a cold rainy evening in the small North Dakota town of Saquachaw. With a total population of 52 nothing much ever happens here. Most visitors are long distance truck drivers and bikers who patronize the local buisness - Oswalt's Bar and Grill. But on this particular evening the buisness is slow and nearly empty.

A lone young trucker sits at the bar. From his lower lip a lit cigarette hangs, its ashes drop down into the glass of bourbon in his hand. The sound of rain hitting the single pane windows is only diluted by the local country music station broadcasting lightly over the bar's speaker system.

The door to the buisness springs open breaking the tranquil atmosphere at the bar with the sound of jingling bells and the howl of the cold North Dakota wind. A mysterious individual in a long black coat walks in. The man sitting at the bar takes one tired glance before returning to his bleak self-focused contemplation.

The mysterious individual hangs up their coat by the door.

The man at the bar hardly notices as the individual sits at the bench across from him.

"What'll it be miss?" Asks the bartender.

"Can I get a large order of fries and a burger, bloody, with all the fixins'. And a pint of whatever you have on tap?"

"One cow eatin' grass, mooing, with fries!" Shouted the bartender as he took a glass and filled it with beer.

"Here you go miss," said the bartender as he slid the glass across to her, "the kitchen should have your order ready in ten minutes."

"Thank you."

The young woman took a sip of the beer, a large white clump of froth stuck to her nose. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand, glancing side to side clearly relieved nobody was around to notice.

She pulled an ash tray full of smoldering cigarettes from in front of the tired young trucker. She sorted around in the ashes and removed a smouldering cigarette burnt nearly down to its filter. She put it to her lips and inhaled the smoke.

The young trucker finally looked up from his solitary thoughts.

The woman blushed in embarrassment as the trucker's speechless gaze fell upon her. She grinned and pushed the ash tray back toward him.

"Heh, I was trying to quit you see, so I don't have any of my own," she said with a timid smile.

The lit cigarette hanging from the young trucker's lip slipped off and fell into his drink.

The woman pretended not to have just seen that as the man quickly fished the soggy roll of paper and tobacco from of his glass.  

"I-I've never seen you around here before," said the trucker.

"I'm moving out west, just passing through here tonight. I'll hopefully be in Washington by the weekend. My grandad owns a farm out there you see."

The trucker lit a fresh cigarette.

"Pardon my curiosity, but you don't look like a farm girl."

The young woman sighed.

"I worked a tractor since I was eight years old but moved to Chicago at sixteen where I modeled for Carriage and Clarke. You've probably seen my pictures, but well, beauty is as fleeting, so it's over now - everything's over."

"Well I think you're still beutiful."

"It means alot to hear that, but it's not true, not anymore."

The woman turned her head revealing the left side of her face. It was streaked with five long scars.

"My agent was a nice man when he was sober, but, well, you know the rest. It didn't hurt for long, not, physically."

She turned her face away from the light.

A bell rang several times from the back of the bar.

"Order up!" Shouted the cook.

The bartender brought the food to the young woman.

"Here you go beautiful," he said.

The young woman forced a smile as a tear dripped from the corner of her eye.

"Thank you," she said in a vain attempt to hide her emotions.

She took a bite of the burger. A stream of bloody juices flowed from the side of her mouth as she chewed. It glided down one of the scars on her face and fell upon the wooden surface of the bar.

The trucker watched her as she ate. She glanced at him briefly before looking away.

"You know," said the bartender, "I use to work in Chicago."

"Oh yeah?" said the trucker.

"Yeah, I was a bouncer at the Sphinx Club. Bunch of high rolling no good gangsters at that place, but gosh, the cash I made. Guys slipping me $50, $100 at a time to get 'on the list' so I would let them in."

"Why'd you give it up?" Asked the trucker.

The barkeep lifted his shirt revealing four large round scars on his side.

"Took four rounds from a .38 special one night. Just some young punk with an attitude. After I recovered, I found myself here somehow, I hardly remember how. See nobody comes here because they decide to come here, they find this place by accident on the road to somewhere else - somewhere better."

The young trucker took a drink from his glass and sighed.

The young woman swallowed what remained of her burger and wiped her face.

The whole bar became quite but for the light music and sound of rain against the windows.

The woman picked at the basket of fries and ate several of them. She pushed the basket to the center of the bar.

"Feel free to take some," she said.

The trucker took a handful and ate them in one bite.

"You have any interesting life stories to tell?" Asked the woman to the trucker.

The trucker swallowed.

"Stories, me?"

He pointed to his hat.

"I deliver for 'Ed's Bread', easy gig. From Denver to Winnipeg every week."

"Certainly there must be something more than that," said the young woman, "didn't you ever have dreams, tried something unique - even if it didn't work out?

The man hesitated. He drank the last of his bourbon and smacked the glass down onto the bar.

"Well, a long time ago, you know - when I was a kid... I use to go fishing with my dad off the South Shore of Long Island."

"Long Island?" Asked the woman, "Long Island New York?"

"Yes," said the young man, "we had a house there, and my dad owned a fishing boat - The Scrimshaw, it was 75 feet long and had two huge outriggers. We would go out every summer and compete in fishing competitions, and we would win, we would win alot."

"There had to have been alot of money in that," said the bartender.

"There was."

"How much?" Asked the woman.

"Upwards of $10,000."

"$10,000 per win?"

"No, per fish. The winner won a pot of usually somewhere around $200,000 - for the biggest and heaviest fish."

"So you were pretty well off."

"Yes, and it was fun too. But dad, he didn't know when to quit. Soon winning meant more to him than everything. So one day we went out for a week long excursion to shores of Nantucket. Everything was fine until it wasn't. The Scrimshaw ran aground on an uncharted rock. The tide was going out so we didn't have much time to think. We began throwing everything overboard to raise the hull off the bottom. We managed to free her but the water was already coming in. My dad sent out the distress call. The coast guard got to us just as the Scrimshaw was going under. To this day I don't know what happened. I saw my dad in the water one moment but then in the next moment he was gone. The coast guard picked me out of the water, but my dad was never found."

"Sharks?" Asked the bartender.

"That's what I've always told myself, and I pray it's the reason, but I think he loved that boat so much that he went down with it deliberately - to fulfill a maritime tradition. He was very fond of history and tradition. I never went to sea again after that. I moved away, relocated to the furthest place away from the ocean - so I would never have to see it ever again."

"I don't believe it," said the young woman, "something else must have happened. No father would leave their son like that. When I was sixteen I had to fight my father kicking and screaming before he would let me leave for the city."

"I don't believe he would have done that either," said the bartender, "maybe something from the boat pulled him down as it sank."

"I thought of all this already, but it doesn't matter to me anymore. He's dead, and the sea killed him, and that's that."

The young woman extended her hand and placed it onto the young man's.

The bartender poured a round of whiskey shots.

"To forgetting the past."

The two bar patrons raised their glasses.

"To the future," said the young woman.

They threw their heads back and drank.

The End.

---‐--------------------

This is all I could write for now. Hope you enjoyed it.

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