The best drink in town

X comes home and tells me he’s found a pub. Not the ideal pub, of course, but not too far off. No music! he says. Above all no music. No radio, no TV. Local ales and a farm cider he could write odes to if he were a poet. Like mountain air. Crisp and flat and pure and cold and dry. The only real cider in town. Not like that horrible fake shit. And strong. More than three pints of this brew and don’t expect to walk home in a straight line, he says. It’s a working man’s pub, he says. He walks in and orders his farm cider, drawing a few suspicious glances from the regular drinkers at the bar. They turn back to their conversations when they see he’s relaxed and keeping to himself. He sits against the far wall and prepares for the first sip. The best drink in town! he says. Soon he’s transported to dewy dawns in Edenic orchards, and the dirty carpet, stale smell and lack of light don’t matter! And what’s outside and waiting for him when he gets home doesn’t matter. Not that those things matter much anyway, he says. That’s what this stuff does to you, he says and he slumps on the sofa, it makes you remarkably clearheaded, for a little while.