It’s raining hard. So hard it feels personal. My friends and I are seated at the outside “terrace” of this new pub along Muchai Drive, ignoring the incessant rain. It’s a new pub, sort of, but it’s already popular with a younger crowd, the upwardly mobile types on the runaway of their careers.
We have a bottle of whisky to share before us, even though one of us isn’t drinking because he found the Lord last year. We are happy for those who find the Lord, for those who find the Lord find themselves, because are we not made in His own image and likeness? Only problem is that he looks sleepy, or bored, sitting there drinking his 190th bottle of water. Sobriety is a tough path if you decide to walk it in the bar.
Although it’s raining baboons and buckets, cabs keep driving in and disgorging more people. Young-looking lads drive and park their first cars in the backyard and their girls run quickly to the shelter of the bar while shrieking and jumping over puddles of water. The men follow them gallantly, not quite running as fast, as if raindrops are little spears that they are braving valiantly.
If there ever is any metaphor for youth it’s braving the rain to go drink. Or maybe it’s the bar because anyone can drink anywhere, right? And to be honest, I don’t think they go to Pixxel for the interior decor but for the character and ambiance. Ambience is energy and the energy at Pixxel Yard is youthful and free. It’s a small intimate bar, stringed with fairy lights and little trinkets, long stools and long dreams, high tables and lofty dreams.
The music was bullish and buoyant, which is how the younger chaps live their lives now. They jump off strange cliffs off opportunities buoyed by music that stresses living your best life, having no fear, and Yolo. If you are middle-aged like I am, you will forget the importance of jumping off strange cliffs but once in a while when you find yourself in this highly pixelated world of those in their early 30s, you are reminded of the beauty of living in the moment. Even if it’s not your moment.
