Drink Talks

By Petra Gönczi

’I take a sip and cross out yet another line. The light on the table becomes broken and spreads a chic rainbow on the white surface. My glass fractured it so it can become something else. It must be nice to get a chance.’ This is a flash fiction collection that revolves around drinks from an espresso to a gin and tonic. As I named it Drink Talks, you might have guessed that. There’s something else, too. All these stories are scenes that were cut. They will make you feel a sense of unfinished business and urge you to think some more. I wish I intended to do that but no: I am more of a feeler. I just felt they had to stop at one point. Stop and make space for the next one. So, what can I give you?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Underground Kiadó és Terjesztő Kft.
• Release date: Feb 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9786156151537

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DRINK TALKS

Petra Gönczi

2020

Underground Press

www.undergroundkiado.hu

All rights reserved!

YOUR WHISKEY AND THE MOON

It is so ordered.

The way things go. The way you choose to wake up or go.

The way you turn tables, the way you breathe.

The way you live to the extreme or scream.

Such a funny, poorly twisted comedy with a protagonist looking behind the curtain. Holding whiskey, drawn to the deep red lights, searching for the moon and yet, the sun.

What is it? – she asked, reminding him to wake up from his thoughts before pouring the drink onto the floor.

He walked away from the window with a glimpse of that moon and turned to her.

­­– Nothing. Just thinking.

– That's not nothing, it's everything. Or everybody, even more.

– Everybody, hah? – he smiled and became sure again that this woman is an eternal reminder to life. She is the strong sentence in an article that you almost deleted. The good closure in a speech that gives you chills. The one to see through the road, clearly navigating through the land of....well, anything, really.

She went on.

– The more I live, the more I believe that each and every thought was present at least in one other person's mind. And that an idea can be equal to a man, a man to the idea.

– Giving such importance to living?

– But of course. What's the point otherwise? The beauty of the end so close? Please... do not go that far. There's plenty more to do and think now or the next minute. The end is always comforting after all. Not much of a surprise.

– My whiskey and that moon outside is a surprise. Would you think they can be a nice couple? – he asked.

– One shines up there, one shines down here. Smooth and strong at the same time. The perfect balance, don't you think?

– Both calm the soul, for sure.

– You see? We're not that special, no. We like to tell ourselves that we are the master of the house. Thinking above all, being both amused and beautifully frightened of life. It's not true – an illusion that can be