“Shakespeare Trial 1916” from Wikimedia.

S is at the bar with Sola, who is drinking “a vein of dark liquid in a tall, narrow glass.” This initiates the theme of dark liquids, continued through the text.

Jen asks who she thinks Straka is,

Eric responds “Summersby + Ekstrom together. You?”

“Today, Shimizu is my favorite,” says Jen.

Eric disagrees. He believes it couldn’t be Shimizu because of settings, but Jen suggests similarities to the Shakespeare argument, that says William Shakespeare could not have actually written the works attributed to him because he wasn’t in the right places at the right times.