There is nothing better than half-empty bars, nights without number. The man on your left stands silhouetted against the huge picture window carrying the full weight of his misery. He is miserable because he is waiting for a wonderful girl, a tall, beautiful girl who will come and lean against the bar like an angel or a gaping wound. You expect nothing. The glasses in the sink quiver like trout in an old mountain pool. Salesmen pass dreamlessly selling shoulders to cry on. The barmaid lights a cigarette because there is no such thing as love. Even the most determined women, the ones who thought they could save you, have given up. You feel something like happiness.

...

What can we expect? A few glasses, a few smiles, a tanned shoulder, a dirty white bra strap. The music is magnificent. A singer with a broken voice. If his voice wasn't broken, nothing would make sense. Hey Jean-Baptiste, what's it been - three litres of beer and all those glasses of Suze? Go home to your wife, Jean-Baptiste, go home and sleep. But the bar smells of mint and the mint smells of rum. Why go to bed? Will heaven smell of mint? Will there be green there? And will our hearts crack like tinkling ice? Bars open their arms wide like unfit mothers. They sing to us of lovelessness. This is all we ever wanted. Oh, Jean-Baptiste, let us go to endless bars that never sit in judgment.

-excerpt from "Mammals" by Pierre Merot