Rags and patches

~tatterdemalion

An older person walks quietly in through the main door of the pub, and sidles up to the bar. They are dressed in what might have once been an excellent black suit, but which is faded to dark gray, where it's not torn, burned, or stained, along with a yellowed dress shirt. The cuffs of the sleeves and the pants legs are frayed, and the elbows and knees are roughly patched. Their lined face seems as well-worn as their clothes.

If you're nearby, you can hear them ask the bartender in a very mild voice, "Do you happen to carry Talisker? Or failing that, Laphroaig?" The bartender nods, and pours something that seems to meet with the strange apparition's approval, for they take a pensive sip and nod. The stranger takes a slim, yellow-bound book from a jacket pocket, opens it to a marked page, and begins to read, occasionally taking a tiny sip of the whisky.