My friends and I are in an on-again/off-again writing club where the rules are simple. Every two weeks you have to submit three short stories that it took you 20 minutes or less to write. These are the results.

An Evening At the Riptide

As they sat at their lacquered driftwood table against the wall, they took turns wearing the visor with the built in binoculars to spy the happening going on around them at their neighborhood bar. It was Friday night, and the place had a continual flow of people moving around, which was hardly unusual. However, with the binocular visor on, it was discovered that your vision would narrow in on a specific scene, and your eyes would feel like a camera recording the reality.

Wide shot of a couple in their 40s starting to voraciously making out in the bar. Teenagers in a basement while their parents were away couldn’t hold a candle of passion to this raging torrent of middle age tonguing. Close in as he moves his mouth down her neck, and then to her chest, following the opening in her shirt nearly to her breast, stopping just short of scandal.

Pan to a group of three just a few seats away down the bar, just starting to notice the scene near them. The person facing the couple in their conversation triangle is the first to spy them. The others notice her concentration is elsewhere, and she lifts an eyebrow and widens an eye as a way of pointing. The others do their best nonchalant over the shoulder glance. All start laughing in secrecy.

Pan back to the make out couple just in time to see the man pull away, then walk off, presumably to the bathroom. The woman sits alone momentarily, studying her bottle of beer, before a lone man that was sitting on her opposite side begins chatting with her. The noise of the bluegrass/country band drowning out what is being said.

Cut to the band playing in front of the fireplace. A group of college students that have the look of those who take their craft way too seriously, especially the guitar player. When he solos or plays prominently, he cranes his neck and bulges his eyes in an entirely disturbing fashion. The band is good enough to have attracted dancers dressed for the occasion, which is odd considering that the band themselves aren’t dressed in any fashion that would suggest they’re taking part in an activity other than lounging.

As the song ends, a dancing couple walks away as the camera follows them. They cross paths with the make out man, now returning from his presumable bathroom trip. The camera follows him back to the bar, where the girl is now fully involved in a conversation with the guy on her opposite side. Not phased by this turn of events, he takes his seat next to her and orders himself a shot of Jagermeister. The girl turns back briefly, and makes an uncomfortable introduction between the men, making it obvious that she’s looking for an escape route that will bring him back to the lips she was just joined with, but her partner offers her no help. His only interest at that moment is getting and drinking that shot. Which he does.

The scene is interrupted as a small Chinese man runs in front of it toward the band, and the camera follows. He dances wildly for just a brief moment before falling down. His friends, also all Chinese, rush to help him up and take him outside. As they carry him past the camera, one of his friends looks directly into the lens and says, “First time in an American bar.”