The Speakeasy Jazz Club

It is 1922. In a dimly lit, clandestine Speakeasy establishment, a scene enfolds in the hidden but lively social scene. Elegantly clad Clients enjoy drinks, music, and dancing as a jazz band plays in the smoky room. Welcome to Billingsley's fashionable Stork Club on West 58th Street. Women are attired in stylish flapper dresses, and mysterious dapper gentlemen enjoy a variety of drinks and cocktail concoctions in the relaxed and comfortable setting.

But is it real.

Flash forward to 2025.

Two figures huddled together supporting each other on the street where the Stork Club once opened its surreptitious and not so secret doors over a century ago. The building still stood, bearing silent and ghostly memory to the fun loving patrons who partook of its offerings of alcohol, music and fun, smoke-filled nights of long ago.

Marti and Giana were tipsy, giggling silly at their ungainly efforts to support one another...but even through the drunken haze, they were sure that the now abandoned nightclub should not be playing soft Jazz music.

The building had been closed on an off over the years as different owners came and went. There were rumors that the place was haunted...people had run screaming from the building on many occasions, so it never was a success for anyone who was brave enough to own and operate it.

Yet the music was real...

"Do you hear that Gi...Giana"? Marti asked, her speech slurred

"Music, yes...should we go in"?

"Su...sure thing...let's...in, I need to pee anyways".

"Maybe it's the drink, Marti, but the place looks funny...do you think it looks funny tonight"?

"Very weird...but I really need to go Gi".

"Ok". They stumbled to the weirdly undulating door, pulsing as if a portal to another dimension. A smartly dressed ancient looking doorman turned up his nose at their general dishevelment and disorder.

"Welcome to the Stork ladies...this way if you please".

"We pleash". Giggled the couple, imitating the man's accent - as they were escorted to the main entertainment area.

The two people blinked and rubbed their eyes...inebriated or not...the scene before them was straight out of another era...a movie set of a long forgotten time, or something more surreal.

🎷 Inside the Speakeasy: 1922, Reawakened

The jazz band plays...but surely...none are living. Or maybe they had stumbled into a classy masquerade ball.

Shadow-figures in suspenders and polished shoes move as if in looped time, fingers bleeding rhythm into brass and string.

The tables shimmer with phantom cocktails...a gin fizz that flickers in and out of existence; absinthe that glows faintly green like lunar moss.

Women in flapper dresses wink at Marti and Giana, blinking eyes holding secrets from a century ago. One offers a drink; another hands them a card on which is written - “Fortune favors the rememberer.”

A gentleman with a velvet-lined voice invites them to dance, speaking in archaic riddles:

"In this room, the present forgets. So tell me, whom do you long to be?"

🔮 The Twist

As they move through the crowd, they realize...every guest is a reflection of someone they almost became. A version of Marti twirls past, wearing a 1930s detective’s trench coat. A version of Giana sips a glowing cocktail while scribbling in a velvet-bound journal labeled “Poet Laureate of Another Life.”

The music changes. A scroll unrolls on the bar.

It reads:

“This club awakens only when the future is lonely enough to look backward.

To leave, you must speak the truth you never told.”

🚪

"I'm not sure what the hell is happening, Giana...but I am off to find the washroom". But Gi is not listening...she is quite absorbed with the utter romance of the ghostlike atmosphere...for she is now convinced that this is all a dream.

The Golden Curtain Beckons...

Marti, tipsy but curious, nudges open a narrow hallway door labeled “Powder Room” in faded gold lettering. The scent of lavender and old gin hangs in the air. Giana stays behind, trying to charm the bartender...who speaks only in jazz lyrics.

The hallway is unexpectedly long. Wallpaper peels gently, grey walls shedding beneath, and the floor creaks just enough to remind her she might be walking through someone else’s recollection.

But Marti’s attention is drawn not to the bathroom door at the far end...but to what lies beside it.

🧵 The Curtain

A heavy faded gold brocade curtain stretches ceiling to floor. Dust motes shimmer around it like animated stars. It’s not moving---but somehow it feels alive, breathing with the pulse of the distant music.

There’s no sign. No rope. Just a seam where time might slip through.

Marti hesitates. Then, gently, she pulls it back.

There is a space beyond...warmer. Soft amber lights hang from mismatched sconces, casting shadows.

On a desk, a typewriter types by itself. One word at a time. Marti steps closer.

The sheet reads:

“You’re not just remembering. You’re rehearsing.”

She shivers, but not from fear. It’s anticipation. The strange kind that feels like recognition.

Then...the curtain falls closed behind her

Marti turns and hurries to the bathroom.

🚪

Meanwhile, in the jazz-soaked haze of the main room...

Giana leans against the bar, the drink in her hand cooler than the room itself. She’s trying to make sense of this...wasn’t this place abandoned? Yet the bartender, dressed like a Prohibition-era ghost with pressed cuffs and a fedora, speaks only in scattered lyrics.

"Time flies, whiskey burns, truth walks in heels," he says, pouring a cocktail that shimmers with impossible hues.

The jazz band’s tempo slows. A sultry vocalist begins to hum a tune that seems familiar...until Giana realizes it’s a melody her grandmother used to hum while polishing silver, back when her family never talked about the Stork Club at all.

She turns toward the stage. The lights dim.

🚪 The Mirror Show Begins

Suddenly, the curtain behind the singer splits open. Giana sees a room beyond...not a stage, but a series of mirrors, lined like portals. Each reflects versions of her:

- One is dancing in Paris in 1947.

- One is arguing in a courtroom, badge flashing.

- One is writing late into the night, surrounded by books and tea-stained drafts.

They don’t feel like hallucinations. They feel possible. Familiar. Forgotten.

Then, one mirror flickers. Her reflection steps out of it.

This Giana is sharp-eyed, sober, and carries a small velvet scroll. She places it gently on the bar. The bartender grins and disappears in a cloud of smoke.

Inside the scroll:

"Marti mustn’t stay too long. The curtain knows stories...but it also keeps them."

Just then, the chandelier pulses. The music swells.

Marti hasn’t come back.

Giana jumps from the barstool, ignoring the scroll...hurrying to find Marti.

🚪

She rushes past the 'powder room' door, down the corridor to the bathroom. Marti is standing by the sink, washing her hands, staring into the mirror as if in a daze.

"We have to go Marti, I think we are in danger".

"There is something very familiar about this place, Gi...a strange feeling of Deja vu, can you not feel it...kind of like dysfunctional connections between memory, recollection and something very unreal". Marti no longer felt intoxicated, but lost in a dream state.

"I feel it too Marti, like if we stay in this place we will become lost forever. Come quickly now, we have to leave".

The two women held tightly to each other's hands and headed for the main hall.

The clientele had disappeared, no well dressed men, no women in flapper dresses haunted the establishment any longer.

Upon the stage, the band still played, the bartender served drinks to invisible patrons, speaking in riddles...but if one listens close enough, they will hear it is really instructions, a warning to hurry...leave this place.

"Several unlived lives walk here, seeking fulfillment...you must escape before the clock strikes past your time".

"Hurry Gi, I fear it is already almost past our time in this dream".

The doorman beckons to them..."This way out...but you must make haste and do not look back, if you do, you will be lost here forever".

Marti and Giana half walked, haff ran, not needing to be told twice. The door to the outside was barely visible now, slowly closing...pulsating, as if with a life of its own.

They squeezed through the unreality of the door, the two women still grasping each others hands for the preservation of their sanity. The warmth of their skin the only true reassurance that they still existed in the real world. 🚪🚪🚪

With one last great lunge out the eerie, supernatural door - they barely escape...as it disappears behind them.

Finally back outside, they both gasped a great sigh of relief. Looking around at the modern world now half awake, half asleep all around them, grateful for the warmth of belonging to that which they know and trust...safe.

"Oh my God...that was creepy". Marti pinched Giana, who yelled out loud, slapping her friend's hand annoyingly. Then she laughed.

"Hell, we are not dreaming. that was real and we narrowly escaped".

"This stays between us...no one will actually believe we partied with ghosts". Giana said, still a bit jaded from the experience.

"Do you think we could write a best selling book from the experience". Marti asked, glancing back to make sure ghosts of 1922 were not still following behind them.

"Pretty sure we could...then we could get rich, buy the place and bill it as haunted with a flare for the dramatic with real ghosts to do the entertaining for us". Giana answered soberly.

They were already making serious plans as they dreamed of a book deal.

🚪Yet, who is to say that they have emerged into the same world from which they had first stepped into the Stork Club.

But that is a story for another time. 🚪🚪🚪