Kings Cross, Sydney — September 2nd, 2008.
Night—around 12:30 AM.
The bar was loud, not in volume, but in the way the night clung to it—warm bodies pressed close, voices overlapping, and lights low enough to forgive anything done in the dark.
Danny leaned on the counter, tapping his tinged fingers restlessly. Half a drink remained in his glass, untouched. He wasn't drunk. He never really got drunk—he wasn't here for that.
He stared ahead at the bottles lined up like trophies. Everything around him buzzed: laughter in one corner, a scuffle starting near the back pool table, music pulsing like a distant heartbeat. And yet, inside his head, it was quiet. Too quiet. He hated the quiet.
"Oi, you alright, mate?" the bartender asked, wiping down a glass. Danny turned, nodded once, and slid the drink away.
He'd been coming here often but it never felt the same. The crowd shifted constantly—people whose names he didn't bother to ask, women who laughed a little too loud, men who talked like they were always two seconds away from throwing a punch. He fit in, but at the same time didn't.
A guy bumped into him as he passed. "Watch it," the man grunted.
Danny stared at him. Just stared, not angry, not defensive. Just…searching, like he wanted the man to give him a reason, a purpose and spark.
But the man just walked off.
Danny exhaled through his nose, disappointed.
He left the bar and lit a cigarette outside, shielding it from the wind. The street was wet from earlier rain.
The smoke curled upward, vanishing into the orange glow of the streetlight. His reflection flickered faintly in the dark glass of a closed shop across the road.
He didn't stand for long and started to walk.
The streets blurred past him—kebab stands, shattered storefronts, someone laughing from an alley.
A fight had clearly broken out somewhere nearby; he could hear the yelling echoing through the alley, glasses breaking. But he didn't go towards it.
Instead, he kept walking until his feet carried him in a tiny park. Benches, trees, few lights, a fountain. It was dead quiet.
He sat down and stared at his hands. They were rough. Not from bar fights. Just…from use. He looked at the silver ring on his left finger.
Marriage, it was a strange word to him. He didn't remember when he started wearing it. It had always been there, hadn't it?
He twisted it slowly, thinking. Then stopped. He didn't like where his mind was going.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, palms against his face. Something was wrong.
Not with the night, or bar or the silence. But with him, something was wrong. But he couldn't say what was wrong and why.
He pulled out his phone. No recent calls. No saved contacts that looked familiar. Just one number in the call log—unnamed, outgoing, several times—all just a few seconds long.
He called it again. It rang, rang, rang. And then voicemail. A woman's voice—warm, soft. "Hey, this is Claire. Leave a message."
He didn't know who Claire was. He ended the call.
The night wind picked up. He stood and walked again–not back to the bar, nor home. Just forward searching for a purpose.
He didn't notice the red mark in his knuckles until a few blocks later. Faint, could've been from anything. But he chose to ignore it.