DumbFunnery

I entered this in a short story contest … and LOST! Yeah! The contest was under X words, and the story had to start with, “A man walks into a bar. But it isn’t a bar.” The story that won (if I recall correctly) was the man walking into like a smoothie place, but he wanted to be in a bar because he’d found out his wife was cheating on him. I took a different route.

A man walks into a bar. But it isn’t a bar.

“Uhh … hello?” The man asks this, panic in his voice. Rather than his usual bar, it is a black, hot, seemingly small room.

“Hello.” A voice calls back at the man.

“Uhh …?” The man says this into the darkness, unsure where the voice has come from. “Hello? What?” The man’s eyes bulge and he looks around, then he whispers, “what’s happening!?”

Riotous laughter fills the cavernous, black space. “Ohh that was fun! All right, take it easy, take it easy. It’s just me. Your liver.”

The kind of silence you’d expect after an announcement like that followed. You know, the kind of silence that happens when you think you’re going to a bar but then it turns out not to be a bar but a giant-sized version of your liver, which also talks to you.

After a while the man manages to say, “Wh …”

“Listen, I want to talk to you.” The liver says this in a very serious tone.

The man nods his head, even though the room is too dark to see anything, and as far as the man knows his liver is omnipotent and can read his thoughts.

“Tonight, you left work and headed to a bar to meet up with some friends. Your friends, seeing as it’s a Friday and they had a rough week, are excited about happy hour … You are excited about the bar’s nachos.”

“Yeah? … They’re … good nachos …?” The man says this in a, ‘hellooo, isn’t it clear!?’ way.

“I’m sure they’re great nachos. But I’m bored! Do you know what I process? Water, milk, coffee and orange juice! Well, and food. But come on. You even eat boring. I. Am. Boooorrrrreeeddddd!”

“Wha … Wh … Wha?”

“All right.” The liver audibly exhales, as though the man is trying its patience, “so when you’re at work and all you have to do is the same stuff over and over again, you get bored. Right? Right.” The liver doesn’t wait for the man to respond.

“It’s like that with me! This week you were so bored and then on Thursday you got that one assignment from Cathy and you were annoyed but so happy! ‘Finally, a challenge!’, you had thought to yourself. I need that challenge! But, ya know, in the form of like tequila shots or maybe some Irish Car Bombs.”

“You said? … You’re my? … Liver? … Right?!”

“Yeah?”

“So …? This is like … When I was in grade school I was in D.A.R.E. … and I heard about … bullies and drop-outs trying to get me to drink and do drugs … And how I should say no. But these bullies were always pictured as one white boy, one black boy, and one Hispanic girl … It was never … My liver …”

“So you don’t have a reason to say no.”

The man and his liver laugh at this and the man had to hand it to the liver, “that was a pretty good one, liver.”

“Seriously though,” the liver says after they both stop chuckling, “seriously, don’t you want to be cool?”

“What!?” The man nearly yells.

“Ha … just kidding? No, no … Ok … Seriously, I’m bored. I mean … I hate to deal with stereotypes but … You … We …We’re one fourth Irish, right? Well … Your body may be twenty-five percent Irish, but I’m one hundred percent Irish … Know what I mean? Huh?!”

The man tries to give his liver a dirty look, but doesn’t know where exactly to aim it. “Liver, if I end up drinking, does your LAME sense of humor end up coming out?”

The liver laughs at this, then pauses and laughs even more. “I don’t think you know yet how true that is … Let’s find out though. Together! Tonight!! Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!”

The man rolls his eyes as his liver continues to chant.

“Fine!” The man finally concedes. “If it’ll shut you up! I don’t want to have to be bothered by you causing me problems – if it takes me drinking all night to calm you down, that’s what I’ll do!”

“You really don’t know livers, do you?”