Blake stumbles in, self-absorbed and vaguely aware of his surroundings. He functions only at an elemental level, surmising no further than that the familiar objects - tables, chairs, barstools, wall of liquor - must mean he is in a bar. The stale, musty smell he brings with him is a constant companion, a harbinger of Death if not Death proper. "Seems once I was at a Crossroads," he mumbles to himself. Blake catches a glimpse of the barkeep hunched over a book with the lettersHTML on the cover. Instinctively he saunters in that direction. "I must be at a Crossroads again."

"Four Fingers -no, wait," says Blake, correcting himself, "Four Roses, I mean." But I shouldn't have to tell you that, he whispers to himself. "Four fingers of Four Roses, barkeep, if you please."

The barkeep looks long at his strange customer. Blake undulates like some sort of billowy shadow and he can't be sure there's a face underneath the brim of the worn fedora. He begins to pour. From nowhere comes the hauntingly familiar strains of the instrumental version of 'The Shadow Of Your Smile.'

"Surprised to see me?" says Blake. The barkeep searches the hollows of his eyes. A wry grin creeps across Blake's face. "You should be. How many characters come back to confront their creators? Not many, let me tell you. Disney would short circuit his cryogenic machine if Mickey tapped on his door. Wish I could write a book for you like Kilgore Trout did for his creator, but…." He lifts his drink to his lips and ponders the barkeep through the glass. "I'm your ghost of Mudcat past,"he says with solemn gravity. "You can't act like you don't know me -hell, you know me better than I know myself. You knew what I was going to do even before I did it. And now, I can say you made me what I am today. Which is, nothing...." Blake's demeanor becomes pensive and nostalgic. "I lived, man." 'Peter Gunn' fades up as Blake relives the glory days. "I breathed, I ate, I drank, I womanized." His gaze wanders past the barkeep to a point of limelight in the past, and Blake laughs appreciatively. "Back then, these threads were trembling with my escapades."He downs the remainder of his bourbon and pushes the glass towards the barkeep for a refill. Blake winks. "All because of you, my friend."

The bourbon seems to invigorate Blake a little. He turns and takes a few confident steps into the bar's dining area. He looks around expansively and holds his glass high, as if toasting the esteemed patrons, past and present, who graced these hallowed walls with their presence. "'The more things change…'" Blake begins, then trails off. Something catches his attention. "I don't recall the belly dancer being here before. Nice touch. Adds class to the place. Much classier than the lime jello thing." He drops his eyes to the floor and once again seems to be lost in thoughts of the past. He turns and walks hesitantly back to the bar, softly gesturing to give form to a conclusion in his mind that had eluded him before, his footsteps echoing as if the place were empty. The music from nowhere stops.

"See, you don't get it, man," Blake began, with a twisted smile. As he continued, he became more animated and fervent, gaining momentum with every revelation he hurled at the barkeep. "You don't realize. You put these things out here not knowing how people are gonna take them. People get dependent on these things, almost as dependent on them as I am on Four Roses. There's an obligation there, a responsibility. You introduce these things into peoples' lives, breathe life into them, nurture them, bring them along lovingly, and they become part of people, like I became part of this one guy, see, who was going through a difficult period, a messy divorce and a suicide attempt and the loss of the love of his life and his job and family and himself, everything, and he sort of, he sort of adopts me, see, 'cause my life is so much more exciting and purposeful than his, see, and he wants my life to be real and his to be some kind of bad dream that he'll wake up from eventually and I live in his head and he sort of becomes me, in a way, thinking 'What would Blake do in this situation?' at times, and then and then… What the hell happened man? I thought you loved me, I was your child you were my God, I the creation You the Creator, but you let me go, let me play the 'My God why hast thou forsaken me' theme, just let me languish out there on them cold threads like old clothes are discarded, you know, like there's no one to wear them anymore so what the hell? and so this guy he sort of goes too, I'm gone he's gone sort of thing. But I'm not really gone, see, I'm just out there in the ether sort of, waiting for someone to revive me, to give me a reprieve from this tortuous limbo, but…."Blake sighs deeply, exhausted of all his energy.   The stanzas of an old country tune, the one with the line about 'one more for the road,' fade up as he finishes his drink and motions for the barkeep to pour him just a wee dram more. Blake smiles calmly.

"But in the grand scheme of things, it don't mean squat."   He downs his drink in one definitive gulp and sets the glass on the bar. Blake prepares to leave. A guest who had been eavesdropping on the tail end of Blake's tirade stops Blake as he turns to go.

"Wait," he says, "What about the guy?"

"Guy?" says Blake, puzzled. "What guy?" 'Oh Lonesome Me' fades up from nowhere as the barkeep clears the glass away. For the first time this evening the barkeep locks gazes with Blake. He notices Blake's eyes are old and gray, but there's something of a sad smile in them, the kind of smile engendered from the calm and almost welcome acceptance of an inescapably tragic fate.

"And barkeep," he says, pushing his fedora back, "a Merry Christmas to ye as well." Blake wraps his trench coat a little tighter around his waist, pulls his hat down over his eyes, and opens the door. There's a brief inrush of cold air and a flurry of snow before 'Thanks For The Memories' fades away.