Escapism
I'm an escape artist. Yes sir, Houdini ain't got nothing on me! It doesn't take much either. All I have to do is force my mind to not focus on things I don't want to dwell on.
I crank up some jazzy lo-fi and I'm not here in this reality. No for a few fleeting moments I'm in a swanky night club complete with period accurate fedoras, and Trilbies. A smokey haze compliments the ambiance. The round tables are covered in Casper's sheets and surrounded by the various pulp fiction denizens I seated there. A man in a gray suit is smiling at the woman in the red dress. Her blonde hair is done up in a cute little coiffer from the 30's or 40's. She's giving the man a serpentine smile only a femme fatale can give,one framed by blood red lipstick.
In a back corner is some shady mobsters in their black tuxedos. Then you have me sitting by myself. In reality I neither drink nor smoke, yet here I am in a nightclub in the past that never existed. I'm slowly sipping the scotch. Yay prohibition's over at last. I puff on the cigarette and study it like it's assigned homework.
I'm doing my best to ignore the Marilyn Monroe wannabe in the white dress. Poor gal. She's a lovely dame but she's barking up the wrong tree. I'm strictly a loner. The case comes first anyway. What case? Doesn't matter.
Then the stupid ad cuts into the music and my little fantasy ceases in irritation. No more discount Capones or off duty cops indulging in the liquor to keep from going home. Thanks to the actor peddling his cellphone company on YouTube I'm no longer the gumshoe just plain ordinary me.
It's only a matter of time before those less than desirable thoughts come creeping back. When they do I'll be on another planet or in the bed of a lover I'll never have or back in a nameless nightclub in the 40's.