My friend, who is also a writer, was trying to tell me last night, while we were drinking at a bar that was empty except for one or two other people, so that the place had assumed a feeling of tranquility, and the bartender, with almost no one to attend to, had taken up her phone, which was charging in an outlet behind the bar, where she was standing, and was scrolling through whatever she could see on its screen…yes, my friend was trying to tell me, while we were sitting there on stools, after he’d asked me what the real subject of my writing was, as opposed to the surface-level, or superficial, and I’d told him that I wasn’t sure I knew...yes, he was trying to tell me that he did know, and that he was going to inform me, but that first I had to finish this shot with him, which, after he’d picked up his, and had handed me mine, from where it had been waiting on a coaster in front of me, I ended up doing, though I needed a moment to gather myself, against the alcohol, before I lifted the glass and tipped it back and drained it.