Mani’s bar didn’t make economic sense, like economics generally. 

She thought this to herself one rainy, needless Monday, while doing the books for the previous month’s takings. 

She’d done ok. The bar had done ok. On a tightrope between plenty and despair, the Crosstracks Inn was somewhere dead middle, trying not to look down.

Mani wore a battered green visor while doing her sums. She fancied it gave her the air of a venerable accountant squinting away in some forgotten office. Even if it did have “Welcome to Haven” written across its brim in a zany, garish font. 

Mani carried this, like most things, with a quiet dignity.

The door opened, and she spoke, without needing to look up.

“You’re late.”

“For what, exactly?” replied Podge, taking off his hat and overcoat and placing them on the hatstand. He did love a hatstand.

Mani’s eyes flickered up from her papers. 

“You’re always my first customer on a Monday, arriving at five on the dot. You hate crowds and you aren’t great with company, but you’ve taken a liking to me, as many do. You tell me things you’d never tell your sons.”

“I don’t have any sons.”

“Exactly. Drink?”

“Sure.”

She kept talking, as she turned away to locate the stepladder she needed to reach the slightly-better bourbon.

“It’s already twenty past five. That means you didn’t take the tram, and instead walked uphill through the rain. Ergo, my dear Podge, you’re late…”

“I didn’t realise I was so predictable.”

“… probably because there’s something on your mind you’d rather not have to say, and so you’ve been turning it over and over, trying to find a more pleasant angle, and didn’t even notice your hat getting soggy.”

Podge couldn’t deny any of this, so he sat down at the bar, and tried to look nonplussed.

“On the house,” she said. 

And then, for a time, silence, Podge alone with his thoughts, Mani with her numbers. It was a quiet bar, early in the week, save for the humming of the fridge and the rattling of the occasional freight train. 

There was once a jukebox, but she had concreted it over after a regular played unseasonal Christmas songs one July too many. 

She could have barred him, but that would have been too easy. The entombed music box was now a feature, with people writing messages on the rough cement for the trapped songs within.

“I hope you get out one day, Teri Baymaker”, scrawled one. 

This worked on a number of levels, after the wayward singer’s recent arrest for public indecency.

“So what’s on your mind?” said Mani, after a while. “There’ll be other customers soon.”

Podge sighed, and ran his hand through his thinning hair. “You’re not going to like it.

“I know.”

“It’s getting bigger.”

“I know.”

“You see, the edges are pulling…”

Podge stopped mid sentence, and stared into Mani’s kind and beautiful eyes, as though seeing her for the first time.

“You know?”

“Come with me.”