What Is the Existential Difference Between a Margarita and a Martini?, J. J. Steinfeld

    Sitting at a crowded bar, feeling lonely and unloved, you have a sudden awareness, not that you wanted one, not after three drinks, margaritas or martinis. You are drunk with imprecision yet this sudden awareness that something you believed all your life is a lie or worse, and hot on the heels of this bursting awareness comes a second sudden awareness that something you disbelieved all your life is a truth or more—more than a truth, worse than a lie. You have a fourth drink and admit you don’t know the difference between a margarita and a martini to the supernaturally beautiful stranger sitting next to you at the bar, and when she smiles in bewilderment, you reveal that you had a dream less than a week ago that you were on Jeopardy!, the clamorous, stressful Final Jeopardy! clue “MARGARITAS AND MARTINIS” and you’re paralyzed with silence, silence as embarrassing as omniscience, awaking to the morning news and you were the first item, a report of your arrest in the middle of the night for the theft of a hundred-thousand items from a thousand museums and galleries during a hundred nights of thievery, ten lifetimes of criminality, one condemnation by the ineffable, that can’t be, that simply can’t be, you screamed at the clock radio, a gift from a thief who stole it from a saint or maybe it is the other way around, you don’t know, not after four margaritas or martinis, in a dream or otherwise, but the night is young and you feel your luck about to change. The supernally beautiful stranger has stolen your heart and you don’t want it back.