Acid Rain Ep 1
Inside, From.
“That’s not how it ended.”
The sentence sat where he’d put it.
Neat. Reasonable. Finished.
The bartender turned the glass the wrong way up. Again.
Glass. Counter. Ring. Silence louder than the drip.
Drying the base, she reached under the counter and brought up the bottle he always drank, even when he said he wanted something different.
Ice went in before he’d decided.
The bar didn’t pause.
A laugh carried from the back.
A chair leg scraped, corrected itself.
Someone at the far end kept talking, uninterrupted, as if nothing worth holding had just been offered.
He waited for the room to make space.
It didn’t.
The bartender poured, stopped a fraction early, then topped it up without looking at him.
The measure was familiar. Too familiar.
She slid the glass to the spot he always took it from, even though his hand wasn’t there yet.
Only then did she speak.
“You were saying.”
The drip behind the bar skipped a beat.
Then caught up.
He nodded.
Once.
He leaned back in as if the story were still intact, as if that sentence had done what it was meant to do.
It hadn’t.
She turned away to rinse the cloth.
He lifted the glass, then set it back down.
The ring it left joined the others, overlapping just enough to make it hard to tell which came first.
Somewhere behind him, a door opened and closed.
New rain entered the room.
They shook it from their coat.
The bartender didn’t look up.
Ice went in.
The light above the bar dimmed, steadied.
The bottle tipped.
She turned away to rinse the cloth.
Water ran.
The drip still didn’t stop.
The bartender set another glass down two places to his left.
Not his.
She wiped a space between them that didn’t need it, then slid the glass back half an inch, aligning it with the edge of the bar.
Conversation bent around the movement and straightened again.
He stayed where he was.
He shifted on the stool, just enough to claim the space again.
The glass answered with a small scrape he hadn’t meant to make.
No one looked.
The light above the bar flickered.
Not out — just long enough to lose the edge of itself.
Conversation dipped, corrected.
A laugh came late.
The drip skipped a beat.
Then caught up.
He stayed still.
The room didn’t notice the difference.
The bartender finished with the other order, slid it across, waited until it was taken.
Only then did she return to his side of the bar.
She didn’t ask if he wanted anything else.
The drip behind the bar skipped a beat.
Then caught up.
He lifted his glass.
Drank.
The taste was right — exactly right — and somehow that made it worse.
He set it down carefully, as if precision might count for something.
It didn’t.
He watched the surface of the bar, the faint rings overlapping where glasses had been set down and lifted again.
One of them was still dark.
He didn’t raise his voice.
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
The bartender adjusted the cloth where it hung over the sink.
Water ran.
Somewhere behind the bar, the drip skipped, then corrected itself.
Nothing else moved.
The door opened and closed without ceremony.
The bartender glanced up — not toward him, but past him — and reached for a fresh glass.
It was set down further along the bar.
Not near enough to interrupt.
Close enough to register.
A coat was shrugged off.
Water darkened the floor in a narrow line that stopped just short of his stool.
The bartender wiped the bar once where the glass had been placed.
Not where he was.
The drip skipped again.
She didn’t look back.
ㅤ
The bartender turned the light down a notch.
Not enough to notice — just, enough.
The drip caught itself and stopped.
He finished the drink.
There was nothing left to correct.
When he stood, the stool didn’t move with him.
He left the glass where it was.
The room went on.
ㅤ
If you felt this, you might like a few more poems from the same breathline.
Nothing truly leaves — it just changes how it stays.
If something moved in you — a silence that whispered — I’d love to hear it below, or in my DM’s.
All artwork courtesy of NDjin Gallery
This is quietly powerful. It reads with a lot of control and confidence, especially in how much you don’t explain.
Especially loved the title. Like acid rain, the atmosphere of the bar slowly corrodes rather than explodes: familiarity wears down meaning, repetition eats away at significance, and small, constant exposure dulls what once mattered.
The story shows damage that: happens gradually, is impersonal
and leaves surfaces intact while altering them underneath (rings on the bar, habits, routines).
I read the repeated actions as the passage of time without much changing.
“There was nothing left to correct.”
“The room went on.”
What a fitting idea to end on! It stays true to the story’s core idea: the world doesn’t pause for moments that feel final to one person.
Reading this the painting "Nighthawks" came to my mind. The same static disillusoined feeling.