Another day another challenge, The title of today’s challenge should be self explanatory. I’m required to write today’s piece without the use of adverbs. So ill be taking to describing a setting of my choice, bringing it to life and into your minds without the use of adverbs. Sounds interesting enough, hope you enjoy it.

I manage to find myself in the same place every Friday. I walk along the same roads, cutting through the same lanes, to occupy the same seat at the bar. One innocent visit germinated into a habit, a habit now calcified at the tail end of my week as perennial punctuation. The sun dives into a slumber, the orange sky congeals to a black and I rise up into the night.

Peeling open the doors of the watering hall, I saunter in. I salute the friendly faces behind the bar and flash them the  sparkling residues of my wallet, inviting my libations from their safety. “A pint of Thatchers please!” Parting with a few pound coins and the odd penny, I arm myself with a golden potion for the evening.

Cutting across the crowded room, I elbow my way past the same old men. The same old men who commune at the foot of the evening with fist fulls of youth by the chalice and pint glass. They commune in ecstasy, lost in the depth of jubilation. I see them there, rocking atop there experienced feet, from heal to toe, swaying as the hops and fermented barley snake their way into there belly’s, they revel in merriment. “Bring em in Dave!” I hear them say, the call for more ales and brews cannons, adding more fuel to their onslaught of just tonality. The moment resonates in infamy, how can I forget those atonal drones, as the speakers dotted across the room lead the slurring sundry through another man handling of a classic ballad. “Signed sealed delivered, I’m yours!” the boisterous baritones burst into chorus, a truth Stevie Wonder must never learn.

Another plunge into my golden companion and the idle chatter around me is chiselled into a flurry of static, the vacant voices decend to simply another noise drifting into the walls. As I steal another embrace of my dwindling golden trough, the thick smog of sobriety lifts, unveiling the obscurity intoxication arouses. Layers of joyful ambience drape themselves over each other, layer after layer, as each moment inches into the next.

My tongue, serenaded by a mischievous sweetness, teases me into the world of slippery syllables. The mosaic in front of me flowers and feeds my eyes, the canvas of bar stools and tables patches itself into a master piece of merriment.

The night fills the empty spaces around me with familiar faces. I find peace in knowing that I’m never alone in this weekly pilgrimage. The evening, at its apex, draws in such crowds. Waves of wondering souls waltz into the thick of things and paint there stroke against the hungry canvas.

 Merriment has a contagious gait. Together we drink. In unified fashion strangers and kin folk alike surrender to the evenings libation, infecting the willing patrons with this swing of Bon Vivre. This bout of merriment is a peculiar breed, a gloriously, potent tonic that takes to running into the depth of our belly’s, overpowering our minds and our sensibility. Sometimes the flowering fun wilts. It happens and I witness it from time to time, the bubbly motif of the evenings glee strikes a dead note. The merriment grows stale as the labours of libation adopts a bitter taste. The meandering  culprits, with their crooked steps and belly’s swirling with more than there fair share, fracture the fugal fanfare. Before there rebellion infects any one else, they are pealed from the palette, and cast into the night. When the smell of anger betrays the sweet smiles, and inhibition forsaken there tethers, the masterpiece is surrendered to the hands of a cubist, and the mural contorts. 

I perch myself on the easel until my time is spent. After the smiles wane, and the fatigue filters in, I reacquaint my feet with the cold night and retreat to my sanctum of solace. Home calls, through the permeable cloak of assisted merriment, it rings. Until the week has weakened its grips once more, I rediscover equilibrium, I gather my senses and bid auf wiedersehen to my portrait of pleasure.