“It says the drink special tonight is ‘The Guillotine.’ What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know,” I told her, “but you should definitely order one and find out.” I leaned back towards the bar, away from Angela. I’d just met her but I liked what I saw. She had a narrow, pretty face, redbrown hair, and curious, beaming eyes. My eyes slipped down to her body - she was wearing a close-fitting t-shirt over a wispy body with a perfect bit of curve to it.
I wasn’t sure what I’d say next, but the bartender came up, adjusted his glasses, and pointed to her empty glass.
“Yea, what’s the guillotine?” she asked.
“It’s a house specialty,” he said.
She looked at me. I gave her a wink.
“Should I try it?” she asked.
“Yea,” I said, giving her a look with few thousand volts of social pressure. A slight smile. “Try it.”
“Okay,” she said to the bartender, “two.” Holding up two fingers.
“You come here much?” I asked her.
“Second time.”
“Ahh.”
“You?”
“Yea,” I said. “I used to come here a few years back.” A lie. I’d never been there before that night.
The bartender set the drinks down in front of us. Two shots, each a shade of light blue fading to green at the bottom. They had a shine like melted plastic.
“Fancy,” she said.
“These look different.”
“Cheers.”
Clink. Drink. I almost dropped the glass. Not from the shot. It wasn’t that strong and it tasted like cotton candy. But while we were drinking, someone had cut off Angela’s head. I felt woozy, expecting I don’t know, a fountain of blood. Or to be the next one killed. I don’t know. Anything but what happened, and that’s that her headless body set down her glass and then tried to answer her cell phone.
“Hello? Angela? I just got here, where are you?” said a tiny voice on the other line. Angela was holding up the phone where her head would have been. She turned then, as if she heard what was being said, and waved to a girl at the door. A girl with long black hair waved back and approached. They hugged.
I was starting to calm down. So she wasn’t dead. That was good. That was weird, but headless and alive is better than headless and dead.
“What happened to you?” said the new girl. She turned and squinted at me, but sort of seemed to look through me. It was weird, like we were looking at each other but never really made eye contact. Then she said, “Oh, I know, I know. The Guillotine is on special, that’s always a fun night.”
Oh. Yea. Well that was a bit silly that I didn’t make that connection until. Wait. Was my head gone too?
Maybe. Oh. Yea. Definitely. Nothing there.
So that was something.
“Hi, I’m Rachel!” She said, once Angela had pointed at me and made a drinking motion with her hand.
I didn’t say anything. But I waved and shook her hand.
“Angela and I used to work together. What about you? What’s your story?”
There was a pause. I shrugged.
“Quiet type huh.” Then she laughed. “I’m sorry. I love doing that. But hey I brought a pad of paper for you guys.”
She set down her purse and started rummaging through it, finally getting out a small notepad and a pen with something sticky on it.
“Ok,” she said, “Bathroom. You two keep the noise down okay?”
She walked off. Angela picked up the pad of paper and wrote:
—Rachel comes here a lot
—Yea, those seem like recycled jokes
—Haha. She can make magic potions too.
—So how long does this last?
—Does what last?
—Us having no heads.
—Oh shit, where’s our heads?