A few of my friends might be wondering why I had my characters visit a bar. After all, I hate spending time in those smoke-filled cesspits. But the bar in my story is based off a particular bar that fascinated me: the bar at a place called “Noah’s Ark.”

It was an ship-shaped building in St. Charles Missouri, and oh look–I found a picture on Google. That saves some time.

The restaurant on the first floor was interesting enough: there were stuffed animals behind glass cases and little giraffe-shaped stirring rods that they’d put in your drinks. But the bar on the second floor was what mystified me as a child.

Of course I was too young to be there when it was open. The only time I could see it was during the day while I waited to be seated with my parents at a table on the first floor. The bar area was vacant during the day, but for some reason I could just walk right up there. I could look at all the empty tables with the seats stacked on them, the long bar with the rows of glasses hanging above. And video games! They had Pac-man! Crystal Castles! Arkanoid! And no one playing them.

“Why would this great place be empty?” I would think to myself. It was a mystery, and I’d wonder what it was like when the adults were allowed in.

I would never see it occupied, though; the business was closed before I turned 21. The building was left unoccupied for years. It was torn down completely in 2007. The only pictures I can find now are from its ruined state:

So there you go. Mean and Dark’s visit to the empty bar in the present is a result of this memory. And their visit to the past is just the sort of thing that I wish I could do.
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