Nathan Stephen was celebrating his birthday.  Time had caught him now, aged him, carressed him until he was worn and tired and had become bitter with his years.  But he had loved his life and accomplished so much in it.  Time, he decided, didn't impact age.

     Entering the Stiff Diamond bar, Nathan ambled through plooms of blue cigar smoke, laughter and drunken insults and sat directly at the bar, hung his head and sighed.  He had never been here before, but bars were always the same.  Beer advertisements hung next to dartboards as if the two were one and the same; pool balls smacked each other, soft rock played endlessly through the crowd and shotglasses echoed on the tabletops.  There was always a pleasant odor of various foods that fought the stink of ciggerettes and always a woman you could take home.

     A burly shadow engulfed Nathan and a man with muscles comparable to a body-builder towered over him.  His face was stern, but somehow friendly and warm.  He smiled, said, "hello" and Nathan could only guess how this giant had come to work in a bar.

     "Can I get you anything to drink?" The man asked him, again exuding a kindness that hardley befitted the brute.

     "Your strongest," Said Nathan.  I'm celebrating my birthday today."

     The man stopped short, dropped his smile and leaned in.  "Your... birthday?"

     Nathan nodded.  The bartender straightened and took a deep breath.  He reached below the counter and brought up a bottle of tequila and a shotglass.  "It's on the house," he said.  "I'm sorry."

     Nathan thanked him and cracked the bottle as the bartender wandered off, no longer appearing so friendly but in obvious contemplation.  Nathan became pensive himself as he stared at his drink.  He smirked, but that didn't make him feel better.  Seventy years old today he thought.  The government called it "Population Control" and now that Nathan had finally turned seventy, he felt that time had finally caught up to age.