Outshining the Stars

As you may or may not know, Think-A-Holic Lounge occupies no physical position in the space-time continuum. So, star maps and road maps are worthless if you're trying to find your way to this notorious watering hole for outcasts in the publishing underworld.

Flesh-and-blood humans can't physically make the trip here unless they go by wormhole. And then the wormhole invariably whisks them right back to where they came from the minute they land here. So, the Lounge doesn't rely on regular people for its clientele.

Regular Think-A-Holic Lounge Lizards are mainly disembodied spirits, alter egos, astral projections and the dreaming selves of flesh-and-blood humans. Plus biped, quadraped and legless creatures of every size, shape and color from intergalactic space. Even creatures who are nothing more than living energy masses scramble to Think-A-Holic Lounge when their workday is over or when they have time on their hands. And, like any regular business on any regular planet with regular flesh-and-blood customers and patrons, Think-A-Holic Lounge hits a slump in business every now and then.

The biggest slump in business for Think-A-Holic Lounge always occurs on Black Friday, the infamous "day of mob behavior" on planet Earth. That's our biggest slump here because more than half of our patrons are disenfranchised and lost souls from that backward and greedy planet. Shopping is their favorite past time, then eating, chin wagging, imbibing intoxicating beverages and fighting, mostly in that order. But, from Black Friday through the last January White Sale on Earth, half of our patrons' flesh-and-blood selves are too busy shopping to warm our bar stools.

So, the other day Angus McCloud, our resourceful big-ass head bartender, put up a new neon sign, right on top of the Lounge roof. After four hundred years as a ghost bartender it finally dawned on him that, if you offer free stuff (even if it's only peanuts, popcorn and pretzels), no Earthling can resist doing whatever it takes to be first in line.

Last week I bet Angus a Solar Sawbuck that he couldn't bring his "patron stats" back up to par before New Years Eve hits Earth. He laughed and raised me another Sawbuck and that made me add a Solar Fin on top of that to the wager. When we finally shook on that deal, I knew by the look in his beady little eyes that I was already being taken for about 13 Solar Quid. Hopefully, some royalties will get beamed into my bank account from that Neptune bookseller before I run out of think-a-hol money. To the best of my recollection, that's never happened before.

Starlight Becomes Her

People will tell you all kinds of things under the influence of heavy thinking and most of what they say is true. Think-a-hol is an even better uninhibitor than alcohol and it has better and longer lasting side effects than booze. But the two a.m. babbling of the star monster I ran into the other night (as we both sat nursing drinks that the ice had long since melted in) was just a lot of tongue wagging, in my opinion.

She said she wasn't from any star, she said she was made of stars and when you looked at her in the dim light, stars were all you could really see. When I asked her what she did for a living, she said she spent most of her time staying just out of reach. I asked her what she meant by that but she kept moving to the next stool each time I asked her a question.

Rather than shout my questions at her, I decided to just let her go for the time being and finally she just disappeared altogether, although I didn't hear the Lounge door open and close. I finally asked Angus, the ghost bartender, what the deal was with her and he said in a low voice, "One day last year a POD author actually reached out and touched her. And she hasn't been the same since."