Club of the invisible

Tonight you are aimlessly wandering the misty streets of this still city. You try to think of nothing because all your thoughts, wherever they stray, always fall back unto the unsolvable troubles of your life. For a moment you'd thought that a walk could take you away from them, but this turns out to be just another vain hope. Either you gaze at the wet asphalt of the wide boulevard – now completely deserted, – or at the cold orange lamps along the street, which gradually disappear into the mist. How come the people can compare these lights to eyes if they are so lifeless – this question emerges in your mind, and you turn to a gloomy crossing to escape their oppressive radiance. Instead, a dim sign appears in front of you from the darkness. You see it's written in beautiful letters, but it's so peeled off that you can hardly read it.

You gaze at the inscription for a moment. " 'Club of the invisible'?" you wonder and take a step backwards. "No, this can't be it."

An awry smile appears on your face.

"Actually why not?" you finally shrug, you push the door and enter.

The salon isn't big, it's half-dark and slightly smoked in the distant corner. Several tables, arranged in no definite order, a few chairs beside each of them. On most of the tables there are glasses, here and there a beer can. In the middle of the salon there is a nice, though old, pool table. The balls are resting inside, only two cues are negligently left on top of it. In the far end of the salon you see a bar with a line of tall stools in front. Beyond it – an impressive collection of bottles. Whiskey, gin, rum, even wine....

Yet something is missing. You begin to wonder what.

The very next moment you it hits you: the people. The salon is completely empty. Strange why you didn't even notice. Perhaps because, in spite of the evident absence of any visitors, lively conversations keep passing you by, along with someone's jolly drunkard's laughter.

You feel something hitting against you and you hear a voice:

"Sorry."

"Why not?" you think to yourself again. " 'Club of the invisible'.... Well, they'd also need a place to gather."

Carefully you start between the tables. One chair to the right draws aside from its table.

"You're new, aren't you," the man on the chair says to you.

"Yeah," you nod. You feel him waving his hand and hear:

"Sit with me for a beer, it's on me."

Slightly embarrassed, you sit on the chair against him. One of the beer cans on the table rises, opens itself and half of its content pours in a glass in front of you.

"Life ain't easy," says the invisible man against you, and leaves the can on the table. "Especially for those like us. Cheers!"

You lift your glass and clink it against his. The feeling is strange as you aren't used to not seeing with whom you are having a conversation.

"A man is like a bottle of whiskey," he starts the dialogue, making you unconsciously glance at the rows of bottles upon the bar. "They are all the same at first sight. Only the labels are different. But if you're a connoisseur soon you will know that's not really true. People may look alike, but what is inside of them is different – there are different tinges, different vintages.... they are of different scent and taste. I have always believed in this."

You sense the sadness which fills this man's thoughts, and it makes you muse into something.

"I know, connoisseurs who can appraise you are rare to be found," he continues, as though he has guessed your thoughts. "Sometimes you need to go out looking for them yourself. That's what I did, but it turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined. Nowadays most people don't try to even look for what's worth in each one of us. They look at the label and blindly believe whatever it says. This way they equalize you to all the rest and eventually lose their own uniqueness. And you, before you even know it, you end up sitting in some inferior bar drinking beer with some wretched stranger like yourself. You wonder what is his story – not because you care about it, but because this is one of the few things that doesn't hurt thinking about. But I guess your story is long too, and you're gonna go already, aren't you?"

You get the feeling he is looking at you. You glance at your glass. There's no telling when its content has disappeared, but you realize he is right. You silently nod, stand up and leave, starting between the tables again.

"Thanks for the sharing the company!" you hear the invisible man calling out after you.

There is another table ahead of you. Three chairs around it, and in front of each there is a fan of playing cards floating over the table. A queen of hearts suddenly flies out of one of them and slaps hard in the middle of the table.

"Come on!" someone cries in air which hints he jumped right into the bear's cave voluntarily.

"Oh, you lucky boy!" another one cheerily exclaims against him and discards in clubs. The third player gives away the jack clicking his tongue in objection. The second one utters a friendly threat: "Just you wait! Next time I shan't be discarding those hearts."

"That's up to you," the first player replies and snaps: "The rest are mine."

"Hey, buddy," says the third player, who sounds more like a she, addressing you. "Won't you join us for a Bridge round? I'm sick of this game of 3-5-8, these two never let me draw from them more than four cards each."

The three start giggling, you draw yourself a chair from the next table, sit against the lady and toss in:

"Why not? I've just drunk a little, so it might be easier to remember the rules."

Laughter bursts out once more.

"You haven't played since you've left collage, have you?" one of the guys asks you and sighs nostalgically. "Same with us. We just can't gather a four since those days. Will you deal?"

"Gladly," you reply and take the deck. You quickly deal thirteen each and then with a smile you observe them zooming through the air above the table, swirling and rearranging, as if on their own.

A glance at your own cards, then you pass. The man after you passes as well, but the lady, who happens to be your partner, bids one club. The one after her immediately doubles. Dim memories begin to swing through your head while you try to remember what she could have told you with this. Slowly, the Blue Clubs system triumphantly returns to your mind, and before you know it the bidding is over and you and your partner are playing four spades.

"I've always thought this game is like life itself," she says while arranging her cards down on the table. You arch your eyebrows impressed by her hand. "Just how rarely do people share their real thoughts and abilities! Sometimes truth does out, but at what cost? Prolonged pointless quibbling, demonstration of dodging masteries and diplomatic skills.... And all this is just so that your opponent won't learn too much about you and your game."

You finish the round successfully. Your two opponents simply have no luck.

"This also happens often," one of them says briefly. "Sometimes it's just not your day."

"When luck has decided to play a bad game on you," the other one appends, "all the diplomacy in the world cannot help you convince it turn back to your side."

"You see?" your partner says when you practically end the bidding with her own six diamonds. An attack from the opponent, then you lay your hand down. She takes a look at it and somewhat sadly she says: "That's what we talk about. A super-fit right after such an easy round. It's just not fair."

She passes her cards to you to let you see exactly what she meant. "Nineteen points," you count swiftly, "and fourteen of mine.... And a total of eleven cards in diamonds. This is a grand slam.... Pure and simple!"

"How about having it bidden next time?" you say rather to yourself.

"You came to a halt at six," she replies and takes back her cards. "That's the risk when you're equivocating. Systems like the Blue Clubs are very good, but unfortunately even it cannot always give you all the information you need. In this case this is not so crucial. The win is already ours, but under other circumstances this could cost you the whole game. It's the same thing in life too. Not rarely you could miss the dream of your life just a few words away – because you didn't have the courage to say those words, or just because you never said them clearly enough."

You note the end of the game and your opponents shake your hands one after the other. Finally you stand up and hold the hand of the invisible lady thanking her for the nice game.

"Guys," you tell them before you leave, "it's funny, but I almost feel uncomfortable for us getting so lucky."

"It's OK. It's just a game after all."

You don't know why, but your eyes right away stop on a small fiery spot somewhere amidst the clouds of smoke in the corner of the salon. You walk closer and see more playing cards. Soon you know that two people are playing poker here and you stay a while to watch them.

In less than a minute you already conclude: "Typical poker players – silent, reserved. How can they play at all when they cannot see each other?"

Loud knocking startles you and you glance towards the middle of the salon. Turns out someone has started playing billiards, but you cannot determine whether they are alone or with an opponent.

"The four of you had an interesting game there, no?" you hear the hoarse voice of the old lady who's been smoking in the corner ever since you came in.

"Yes," you reply shortly concentrated over the playing cards that float over the small table. The one against her takes a sip of black tea and leaves two cards on the table. The deck between them rises, the top two cards separate from the rest and lay by his cup. Then they fly up to the rest of her opponent's cards, and he triples the stake.

"You know...." the old lady addresses you again, "normal people rarely come here. I've always wondered what do you people think of us."

You sense that she is staring at you, but don't answer. The uneasy feeling appears again.

"You treat us with mistrust, you consider us different just because you can't see us. This way though you make one fundamental mistake: you always trust first and foremost your eyes, and this is why they can most easily deceive you. It is true that often, very often, they are the most valuable of senses because they are hardest to delude. A mere look at somebody is enough to know what he is thinking of you. But it is not always necessary. Not always you need your eyes to see that somebody is cheating you."

She pauses and you feel the tension between the two players escalating. You know that she's no longer staring at you; instead, she turns her eyes towards her opponent and you hear her saying rather to herself:

"You're bluffing, my boy. I'm paying."

A few of her chips jump to the middle of the table.

Formidable is your amazement when you see all their cards down. Full-house in her hand against a mere pair of aces in his.

"She did guess that!" you exclaim in your mind, although you suspect that 'guess' is far not the most accurate word. You shake your head and leave towards the pool table. As you approach you see yet another unusual scene. One of the cues is floating over the table, it hits the white ball from time to time and the white balls knocks one of the others down to some pocket; but right before the color ball drops inside, it stops dead and returns on top of the table.

You watch the player for quite a while, admiring his skills, when the cue suddenly leans itself on the edge of the table and he says to you:

"Wanna play?"

"No, I have never laid my hands on such a thing," you reply.

"Doesn't matter. You've been watching me for half an hour already." You have the feeling he smiles to you. "So you already know how it works. Come on, let's give it a try!"

You agree driven mainly by curiosity, wondering whether you can do it, and take one of the cues hung on the wall.

"Will you break?"

Without knowing exactly what you're doing, you hit the white ball with the cue.

"Wow, what a beautiful break!" The man seems astonished. "I figure you lied to me you've never played billiards."

"No, it's the truth. I've seen pool tables before, but I've never had anyone to play with."

The game quickly unwinds and before long you sink into it, finding out just how absorbing it can be. By pure chance you discover a few tricks and demonstrate mastery and agility you've never known about.

"See?" he says to you. "This is the game of billiards. Everyone can find out they are a master in it even if they never played before. And do you know why?"

You slightly shake your head and hit the white ball. It taps the third ball, the third ball merely touches the seventh and the last one dives in the corner pocket.

"Thing of beauty!" the invisible man exclaims. "Do you know who creates this kind of games? The people who have no work to do. Those who are infelicitous enough to always fail showing their abilities and who can never make any impression to the rest. People like you and me. This is why in those games you can always win against everybody, even when you play for the first time – because luck is a major player in them. That's because the people like us know how big is its role in everyone's life, although practically luck does not exist. And that's why you won," he concludes in the end, right when you knock the eighth in one pocket. Finally, he adds: "Here, have a beer on me."

A coin whirls from out of nowhere to you. You catch it, thank the stranger for the game and go to the bar to have a beer.

"Pool again?" you hear a slightly hoarse but seemingly friendly voice. You realize it was the barman. The next moment the coin slides along the counter and falls somewhere behind it; a large mug of beer lands on the bar in front of you.

"Why?" you ask him.

"Each time someone wins a game of pool against him, he gives him a coin to have a beer. I guess he cannot afford more, and he cannot bring himself for less." The barman obviously leans on the counter as the wood pops gently. You hear a sigh. "That's what they're all like in here. I've been watching them for over ten years now. Most of them have been visiting since the beginning, and yet they barely know each other. They come here only because they have nowhere else to go. Besides that.... as you can see, they are nice people. They are generous, amiable and friendly to just anybody, especially as the drinks go. Such people are never successful in life, at least in my opinion. No matter what people say, if you are ill-fated, this is the most reliable proof that you are a decent guy. Do you know why? Because you always give away everything you have, and nothing remains for yourself. Too bad, isn't it?"

You nod sadly and have a swig.

"See those bottles behind me?" the barman asks you. You look at the bottles behind him and nod again. "I've been collecting them for ten years and I still don't know what for. No one drinks anything besides beer in this bar, beer in those tin cans over there. Life is full of pointless things, which are but the only mainstay for the people like us...."

He sighs heavily.

You go on looking at the collection. It is a really impressive one, you think to yourself; then your eyes chance upon a mirror, tucked aside in the corner.

"What is that?" you ask him and point a hand at it.

"Oh, that?" the barman turns at it, clearly surprised by the question. Then he tells you: "Just an old relic. Long ago I used to love this mirror because it was the only way to see my friends, as well as my own face."

"Why?"

"Because it is special," he replies in a lower voice. "It shows the truth, not what the eyes see. The invisible people like us are also reflected in it. Go see it if you wish."

You walk behind the bar and look at the mirror.

The whole salon looks totally different in it: a cozy, pleasant place, full of cheerful people, who play, drink beer and tell stories to each other. You can see everybody: the lonely man by the door; the party which has resumed playing their game of 3-5-8; the two hardcore poker players in the corner; the pool master against whom you won just a few minutes ago; and many other people too.