After Life
The man approached the bar and ordered, “The strongest whiskey you’ve got.”
The man sitting next to him at the bar let out a whistle and turned to him with a grin. “You sure you can handle that old man?”
The “old man” shot him a look full of a number of horrible emotions and the grin immediately fell off his face. The old man turned away again as the bartender brought his drink over and downed it.
The other occupant had a mixed look of awe and terror at this point and in a much lower, much more sober voice – he had been drinking his usual fair share, but a look like the one the other man gave him has that effect – asked, “Somethin’ you need to forget, mister?”
“No,” was the only answer he got before the bartender refilled the man’s whiskey and he drank that, too. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but the old man obviously wasn’t finished replying. “No point in trying…in fact, one can’t even try, one either does or does not, and this simply can’t be done.” He attempted to smile at this, but it just would not come, not in his current mood. Instead, he continued to look as sad and lonely as he felt.
The other man looked at him confused for a second, then whistled again. “That bad, huh?” he asked.
“Bad?” He took another drink and this time the other man waited. “I imagine it’s unpleasantly like being drunk.”
The man furrowed his brow in concentration, trying to understand this, as he was always in a pretty good mood when he was drunk. “What’s so bad about being drunk?”
“Ask,” replied the old man, “the drink you’re holding.”
The man looked at it, back at the old man, back at his drink. “Look, I’m starting not to like all these riddles,” he slurred, now firmly in his drunken state again. “Either blast yourself out of here, old man,” he continued to slur angrily, then switched to a friendly tone and continued, “or confide in your pal, here.” At this point, he indicated that he was the “pal” he was talking about by pointing to himself with his drink hand and trying to throw a congenial arm around the old man.
The old man, however, was no longer there and he slipped off his seat, onto the floor, and spilled the remainder of his drink on himself.
The old man had wandered outside. He hadn’t bothered to pay; the bartender knew him. It wasn’t the sort of place he would normally have frequented, but under his current circumstances he had become well-known there. He wasn’t planning on leaving just yet, but he wasn’t interested in a fight with a drunk and certainly didn’t want him to probe any deeper into the old man’s problem.
Although he could handle his intoxicants well, the old man stumbled across the street. It was for just that reason – that the man in the bar had brought up what was troubling him – that he didn’t have a steady pace. The full, crushing weight of his memories had jumped on him and was causing his sway. He couldn’t bear it. Usually he did his best not to think about it, but it was always with him, always would be, and he didn’t really have much else to do with his time. Actually, he did, he was still important and he knew it, but when he got like this…there was no point to anything.
Not even that which he was about to do.
He threw up. That’s not the thing he was about to that had no point, but rather a result of his feelings and past. His thoughts continued to swarm and plague him no matter how much he willed them away. He stumbled and leaned against a building, wiping his mouth and beard on his sleeve, lurching toward an alley. A couple tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn’t want to forget, but sometimes, times like this, he couldn’t cope with it. So, he stumbled into the alley to do the thing that had no point, not because it would take his mind off things – nothing could – but because it was something to do.
Someone – multiple someones – watched him stumble down the alley. Those in the street thought he was a crazy old fool and a few mumbled it after him. Those in the alley thought he was their next victim. He seemed to be lost in his drunken thoughts. He was only half lost in thought. In truth, his thoughts sickened him. They didn’t disgust him, they were far too pleasant for that, but they saddened him and made him feel almost physically ill. Ok, more than almost; he did leave that pile of regurgitation in the street, after all. He also wasn’t the least bit drunk.
The thugs surrounding him in the shadows thought otherwise, though. Further and further down the alley he wandered, closer and closer the thugs came. Finally they stepped out and stopped him. He had known they were there, was counting on it even. And they, in turn, were counting on him being a drunk and crazy old fool.
Despite the blade the thug in front of him pulled, he knew he would win this fight. He could’ve picked a fight in the bar with the drunk easy enough, and won it, too, but that wouldn’t have given him much to do. In fact, he did win that fight; all he had had to do was step away and the man was on the floor.
He hadn’t won yet, though. There were still six thugs in the alley with him. Six, he thought, and almost laughed. He couldn’t, of course. He continued his drunken charade and stumbled to a stop. The thugs obviously weren’t interested in persuading him to give up his money or worried at all about being cruel to an old man; the first thug stepped in and swung the blade at his head.
The old man straightened and turned his head. The vibrating blade sang past. The thugs were shocked; wasn’t he drunk? While the one with the vibroblade’s arm was extended past him, he brought his arms up – one on the other side of Blade’s forearm, the other behind his elbow – and with a quick movement forced his arms together, breaking the thug’s elbow.
Thugs two through six took an involuntary step back as their leader went screaming to his knees. Now the old man had won. Oh, he would still have to fight them, he knew that, but they were off-balance, not to mention short their most important member. And he wasn’t exactly running out of tricks here. He almost smiled…almost.
“Get him!” Blade – though he had dropped it when his arm broke – yelled from the ground, clutching his arm. Two and Three approached the old man from behind while Four, Five, and Six stepped toward the center of the alley in front of him. Two and Three approached cautiously, attempting to flank him. Any move they made was futile. The old man simply did a high back flip over them before they got close enough to strike.
That was “old” for you. That was the Force. That was Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Now he was between the thugs and the intersection of the alley and the street. He could leave. He didn’t have to deal with this. He was a General, a Jedi Master, and…other things to other people that he couldn’t bare to think about right now.
He had nothing better to do.
He assumed his Soresu stance, but without his lightsabre and invited them to attack him. The size of the alley allowed no more than three of them to engage him at once, so Two and Three turned to face him. Again they tried the flanking maneuver.
As they neared him, Obi-Wan made a feint toward Three with his upper hand, which he made a fist on its way to connect with the thug’s face. Three reacted by leaning back out of reach and swiping at Obi-Wan’s arm with a vibroblade he, too, had produced. Obi-Wan wasn’t interested in hitting him, though, so he pulled his fist in safely. His move was actually meant to give him momentum, which he used to jump, turn horizontal, and spin, hitting Two with a kick to the head instead.
Three definitely wasn’t ready for this and fell back unconscious. Obi-Wan landed between Two and the now-unconscious Three. Two recovered quickly, turning and slicing at Obi-Wan’s midsection in one swift move. With another back flip, Obi-Wan went over the heads of Four, Five, and Six, out of his attacker’s reach again, but this time at the other end of the alley.
It was Four, Five, and Six’s turn to come at him. He backed down the alley at their advance, even though there was nowhere to go but against a duracrete wall. He backed all the way up to it and the three thugs closed in.
Two was guarding the exit, his attention too focused on Obi-Wan to even bother checking on Three, not that it would’ve mattered. Blade had gotten to his feet and was leaning against the wall and stealthily drawing a blaster.
Four and Six swung at Obi-Wan, one high, one low. Obi-Wan leapt over them both and against the wall. Five thought he was being clever when he threw his blade at Obi-Wan, but all this accomplished was leaving him weaponless as Obi-Wan pushed off the wall and tackled him. Grabbing his shoulders, Obi-Wan knocked Five hard against the ground when they landed, knocking him out cold, too.
Two advanced seeing an opening, past Blade who cursed him for blocking his line of sight. Obi-Wan simultaneously took down Four and Six with a flurry of punches and kicks. He hadn’t knocked them out, but they were in no shape to fight, either. Obi-Wan opened his robes and took out a flask he had filled with intoxicant at the bar and took a drink. Now it was just him, Two, and Blade.
Deciding that enough was enough, he drew his lightsabre. He ignited it, flipped it around once in his hand, and ran at Two, cloak billowing behind him. The two men met, the thug dodging to the side and sending a blade-punch at Obi-Wan’s side. Obi-Wan had predicted this, simply spun his own blade perpendicular to their paths, and severed the man’s hand. He dropped screaming like his leader.
Obi-Wan clipped his lightsabre back to his belt and closed his robes and began walking back to the street. Blade, who had been stunned to see his men fall like that, now recovered in rage. He aimed the blaster at the retreating Jedi’s back. Obi-Wan half-turned to him and gave him a look that convinced him not to waste his power pack.
Back in the street, Obi-Wan wandered off in the direction of home, alone with his persistent thoughts. Siri…
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