Pour Decisions

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POUR DECISIONS



In dim-lit rooms where silence ticks and men revise choices, a bottle seal cracks with the hiss of old sins waking. What’s inside snakes its amber evaporation until it fills the entire room. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes like fear knows regret well— seeping slowly like honey spilled in twilight, gilding every misstep. What was merely foolish grows tragic, what was lonely becomes lost.

There is no bad decision that cannot be made worse by adding bourbon—each sip a sermon in forgetfulness, each glass a deeper echo down the hollow stair.

It coats the tongue with false warmth, conjuring lost loves, lost bets, and smoky songs no one should sing alone. Bourbon does not absolve; it embalms, preserving poor judgment in its amber light, suspended like ash in your teacup when night gives way to dawn.

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This bit of Prosery shred with those fans of T.S. Eliot over at DVerse. It contains the line "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes" from his best known work, The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock.

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©2025 Christopher Reilley 

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Comments

  1. I love the scene you paint, and so many good quotes to pull from this....
    There is no bad decision that cannot be made worse by adding bourbon

    Somehow it make me think of workers drinking up their wage and coming home empty handed to the waiting family

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  2. "What was merely foolish grows tragic, what was lonely becomes lost."

    Oh the angst in this piece

    Much♡love

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  3. Chris, the practical lament of every drunk if they could ever get clear eyed enough to acknowledge it. Your last line is devastatingly good.

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  4. I like the way you set the scene in the opening paragraph, Chris, and the way you focused on yellow, ‘seeping slowly like honey spilled in twilight’. I also like the phrase ‘each sip a sermon in forgetfulness, each glass a deeper echo down the hollow stair’.

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  5. I love the way you have painted the atmosphere of the scene and beautiful imagery - Jae

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  6. Great use of the prompt line. I too liked the opening paragraph it grabs the readers attention. Truedessa

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