There was laughter then, and the clinking of glasses, and the fullest courage of men who believed the night was young. Men who believed, every last one of them, that the dawn would never come.
One drank to friendship. Another to love. Another to love again, for love had been toasted once and surely deserved it twice. And another still drank to nothing at all, simply because the glass was full and the night was forgiving. Voices rose. Arguments sparked, caught, and burned down into songs. Old grudges were pardoned, new oaths were sworn, and the barkeep was declared, by unanimous decree, the finest man in all the land. The tavern became a cathedral of fools, and every fool in it was devout.

But the hours passed, as hours are wont to do. The candles shrank. The songs lost their verses, then their words, then their tune. What was joyous became heavy, and what was noble became absurd. The man who had pledged his undying love could no longer find his own coat. The orator who had settled every great question of the age lay asleep against a barrel, still mid-sentence.
And beyond the shutters, quietly, and without asking anyone’s leave, the dawn was coming. It always comes.