Hyacinths

In an old brick tavern on a hyacinth strewn hill, three men sat in a brooding silence.

The first was a man of great stature- his pocket watch gleamed, and a large engraved locket around his neck glinted in the dim light. Everything about him was a dusty brown- his suit, hair, and the alcohol he sipped seemed the same color. The gold glow of his bijouterie seemed to fade into his hunched form, and he had a lonely air about him.

The second was a man with youth, but little else. A shabby coat, and worn shoes. His eyes were dark and bright, but his mouth was sallow. Long, slender fingers wrapped around his glass. He drank a foamy beer in hopeless silence.

The third was a man with the lines of age drawn into his face. Thundercloud hair framed his spotted skin, and his eyes glinted with blue lightning. He carried an ancient leather satchel, and graphite tinted his fingers.

“Another round, gentlemen?” asked the aging bartender.

The first and third men nodded, and passed their pay to the bartender, but the second shook his head.

“Shame, I’ll have to miss this round. I’ve not three pence left to spare.”

The first man shook his head. “It’s on me, good sir. I’ve got a deal of sadness to drink away, and I reckon you lot have too.”

The second man smiled gratefully, and thanked the first man profusely.

He waved it off. “It’s nothing, lad, really. In the end, what are we but three nobodies on bar stools, drinking away our petty sorrows?”

The second man sighed. “‘Nobody’ is the problem. If fate made gold out of talent, I’d have money for debts. No one knows my name, so I work from dawn till dusk for an audience of fewer than a dozen.”

“I’ve got money and fame, but my lover left me for the same cause. Said that beneath my good fortune I’m a nobody as well, like a hollowed out apple. I’ve money, but no love, and you’ve talent, but no money,” said the first man.

The third man interjected in a rasping voice. “Money and love can be earned. No man can win youth, though many have tried. I’m falling further from my appetite for life each day, and have nothing to show for over seventy years of money and love.”

“And what do you do?” inquired the second man.

“I paint,” replied the third man. “These days, nothing catches my eye like it used to. Even the glorious hyacinths of my homeland seem overused and dull.”

The second man was shocked. “But, if you have love to spare, paint that, then. A wife? Kids? Paint them, and you’ll not want excitement. The only thing more everchanging than those flowers of yours are people.”

The other man gave him a queer look. “You might be right, then.”

“Why wait here, then, any longer? Let us not waste the gifts we have been given and revel for as long as fate allows!” The first man threw his coins on the table to cover their tabs, and all three stepped out of the old brick tavern onto the new green hill.

They took the path through the hyacinths, hand in hand, wherever it may take them. And to this day none know what became of the three men in the tavern.