New Year Vignette

My table provided a good view of the bar, formerly the serving hatch of a genteel Victorian home that was now the only restaurant within walking distance. Steaming piles of boiled vegetables and slabs of beef had once passed through this portal; now it was all craft cocktails, obscure varietals, and black lager although the architectural details and lighting remained the same. The shadowy figure drinking and the colors in the room reminded me of pulp novel cover art, so I quickly snapped a picture with my phone, as if I were some grizzled gumshoe tailing an errant husband meeting his mistress at the bar, a routine assignment suddenly turning tricky when a murderer concealed behind one of those fluted pillars shoots my subject in the head. Smoldering cigarette smoke twirls in the air and a smoking gun silently disappears into the black ether from whence it came. 

Then my cassoulet arrived, delivered by a Kohl-eyed waitress who belly-danced her way around the tables like she was auditioning for a Sultan, one hand holding the plate high above her head, the fingers of the other conducting whatever music was the soundtrack of her thoughts. Is there anything to do around here? I asked her. She shook her head and told me to just eat, drink, and be merry. I guess I'll have another one of these, then, I said, pointing at my empty wine glass. And can you bring me a new knife? Mine fell on the floor when I was taking a picture of the bar.