A rabbit, a cat, and two mice walk into a bar. Now I really don't have a funny joke to go anywhere with this, so why don't you make up your own, get a few belly laughs out of it, and then go ahead and give this book a five star review while your at it for being the funniest piece of literature you've ever read.
As Mickey took in the bar - the customers milling about, toons grabbing drinks and getting drunk at the service counters, some passed out everywhere because anti-loitering laws probably haven't been established yet - nostalgia hit harder than he'd thought possible.
"Minnie, remember this place," Mickey breathed.
Minnie just nodded, holding her hand lightly over her chest, too overcome to speak.
"It's just another tavern," Oswald said plainly.
Felix held up a hand, "Just give them a moment," he said.
"I haven't been in here since 1928," Mickey said as he took another step forward, "...which actually feels almost like yesterday..."
Woah, that was a weird feeling. That everything that had happened - World War II, the Civil Rights movement, video games, almost the entire existence of in-audio films - the whole technological boom - so many lives, childhoods, the entirety of everything in life as they know it for so many many - all of it just a small blip on the radar within the pocket of time that existed between Public Domain and the present; so much history that Mickey knew as part of the world he lived in, but no longer remembered as his own. Had Mickey been a part of any of it? Who had Mickey become in that period of time that was between the here that had existed in this Cantina and all that was the now?
Mickey was wrapped so much up in his nostalgic wandering, he almost bumped right into his old pal, the Guitarron Guy. Mickey pulled himself to a stop and barely had the chance to respond before-
"Me old pal El Gaucho!" The Guitarron Guy cried, arms wide, "I see you brought your gal. Want me to play a song for you?"
Mickey and Minnie looked at eachother, caught off guard, not sure if they had the time. But the Guitarron Guy had already started playing. Minnie's expression went sly, Let's go for it.
Then, Minnie grabbed Mickey's hand, spun him around to face her, one step forward, two steps back; Minnie looked him straight, giving him those big flirtatious eyes. Throwing his surprise to the wind, Mickey smirked back at her; this was a side of Minnie he'd thought he'd forgotten, and suddenly he was here for it.
As the dance began to pick up pace, Mickey had been worried, this version of Minnie was so well experienced in the ways of her salsa zest, he could barely keep up. In a spin, he stumbled forward, but suddenly he stopped, he looked back; Minnie had caught his tail, a playful expression lighting her face, and a moment later, she spun him back toward her; back around to face her.
And Mickey felt it, the growing familiarity, his steps falling into place with those of his old persona, it was time to put on some of that Gaucho Groove.
So the two of them danced, the Guitarron Guy was strumming away in a lively romantic tune that spun them around the room together in this special tango that could only be understood by the two of them.
Hot diggity it felt good to be young again.
The crowd could only stand there, watching; Felix found a pretty she-cat to give a charming grin at, and quickly received a smack in the face. But Mickey and Minnie were too wrapped up in their own world to notice any of this.
Then the music slowed; Mickey and Minnie looked at eachother; something new connected between them, their tails twined together across the floor. In the past 95 years, they had surely shifted and changed, but at the very core, they were Mickey and Minnie, together in the beginning, together 'til the end. What may or may not have happened between them between the time they were here last and now didn't matter, what may happen next time didn't matter, because they were here together now, and that was what mattered.
"You're not going to turn evil on us, are you," Minnie said, almost as if a sense of knowing.
As Mickey looked at her, the love and hope in her eyes, the rhythm of the music still running through him, he felt himself making a promise he didn't know if he could make, a promise he could not promise he could keep, "Never," he said.
Then the Guitarron Guy threw in one last soul-rendering chord, Mickey and Minnie spun across the room, and then the music stopped. Patrons cheered on the two lovemice enthusiastically.
Oswald had to push his way through the crowd, arriving beside them a moment later.
"Uh Mickey, Minnie, loved the dance routine or whatever you call it, but people are watching."
"Of course people are watching," Mickey said, "After a performance like that, who wouldn't be?"
Minnie gave a graceful pose, stealing the spotlight, that was something she could get back into.
"No, I mean…"
But Oswald was interrupted as a moment later a police officer stepped before them.
"Well, if it isn't the hungry hobo. And what have we got here? The Infamous El Gaucho and his girl."