A New Bar in Town (Time Tunnel Tale #3)

The Bar had just opened. It was 1983 and the infectious synth-pop of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ played on the bar’s sound system, and all around the pubs and clubs of Glasgow. Aye, futuristic music for a futuristic bar, thought John McAra, as he surveyed his new place, ‘The Time Tunnel.’ It was a great name he thought, as it tied in well with the music (Ultravox, Soft Cell, OMD, New Order) and the futuristic/ sci-fi images that were displayed all around the place, posters from old sci-fi movies, and more modern images from 1970s TV shows. This would be the pub of the future, even though the fabled ‘Year 2000’, the advent of the New Millennium, was still decades away. McAra had masterminded a few hostelries in his time, but he believed this one to be his best ever, although once you stripped away the décor, it was just a ‘spit and sawdust’ bar like all the rest of them in the area. His waitresses would be dressed in futuristic garb, like something out of the ‘70s Sc-fi series UFO, or the more modern, last year’s Bladerunner. He would wear a silver space suit when he occasionally made an appearance behind the bar if he could get one to fit him from the local fancy dress emporium down the road.

The cocktails, or at least the renaming of the commonplace drinks was in keeping with the theme e.g., ‘Spaceship Superstar’- (Jack Daniels and Coke)

‘Roy Baty’s Delight’ (Vodka and Lemonade), so the old dressed up as something different.

Michelle and Tracy, the waitresses were not happy with their dresses, but were prepared to go along with it for a rise in their pay. Michelle looked a wee bit like Jenny Agutter in ‘Logan’s Run’ and was the more vocal of the two. Tracy was shorter and had a hairstyle like the singer from the Human League, Phil Oakey, which would stand her and the pub in good stead image wise, as she looked a bit futuristic, though she was not the brightest star in the firmament.

All he was worried about was lining his pockets and generating more income for his increasingly fat bank balance.

The construction workers had told him that there was something weird about the place. He had ignored their comments, telling them to get on with it as time was money, deadlines were there to be met and so on and so forth.

He secretly wondered if the place was haunted, this was an area which had that reputation, or so some of his older friends in the Griffin Bar had told him on many a drunken evening.

It wasn’t until the bar had been open for six months that a student, Maria Sutherland had gone missing after a night out in the city centre. She was reportedly last seen in ‘The Time Tunnel’, according to the local press, and rumours began to fly McAra’s way. On one view, he was an upstanding citizen, a pillar of the community, but there were those who knew that his past had been less than angelic. Some of the more speculative tabloids had gone on to say that perhaps Maria had disappeared down a Time Tunnel, like Dr Who in the Tardis, or through a ‘time barrier’ like Simon and Elizabeth in the ‘70s children’s sci-fi series ‘Timeslip’, as time goes on the city becomes less safe, said one local commentator.

As the weeks went by the pub seemed to thrive on the weird and wonderful rumour about the place. He wondered if there was an actual time tunnel in the bar, aye, he would open a cupboard and end up in 1999 or whatever.

One evening, he was in the bar, at closing time, Michelle and Tracy were gone, and he had said he would lock up.

He opened the door with the sign marked ‘Cellar’, this was not a door they used, it was always locked for whatever reason.

The door creaked as he opened it and descended the wooden staircase, feeling a breath of cold air, coming from God knew where.

He felt faint, and his vision was swimming, he felt dizzy, what the hell was this, was he having a stroke or something, he was overweight and pushing fifty, but had never issues like this before.

He fell down the stairs and landed on the grass. Grass?

That was weird for a start.

He was out cold, for a while, and then he came to, still on the grass, but out in the open, and the weather was hot, he wasn’t in Glasgow anymore, but where and at which year?

The bar owner gone missing after some dodgy allegations had brought the bar tom the headlines, but nobody had guessed that the time tunnel inside ‘The Time Tunnel’ as yet. Though Michelle and Tracy would in the near future, to coin a phrase.