A slice of fiction that is dark
Granted, this came out really dark. It started as a joke between a friend and an idea got fleshed out on a notepad in the dark. I couldn't sleep, so here you go.
Solace, Distilled
I’m three-fifths into my second gin & tonic, mixed haphazardly in a pint beer glass. As I sip, the wind sends crisp leaves skittering across the cracked concrete in front of my flat.
That fancy atomic clock, with it’s digital thermometer, says the ambient temperature is 21 degrees.
And I know what you’re thinking, “Bub, time to put the summer drinks away, aim for something a bit more seasonal-appropriate, maybe a rum and Coke or most certainly a Manhattan (down, in a highball, two cherries, just the way you like it).”
And to conventional wisdom, I say fuck it. And raise my glass in a silent toast to non-conformity.
I’m not out for my junior alcoholism merit badge, honorable mention, second place.
I’m drinking myself to death.
Plastic gin and vodka bottles packed in the freezer, party jugs of bourbon, rum, Scotch on the counters, cases of beer in the fridge, which have crowded everything else out but the condiments in the door.
My third gin & tonic is gin, ice and lime. Tonic? I’m fresh out - besides, it just gets in the way.
I rest my head in my palm, elbow resting on the wobbly two-chair kitchenette in my shitty, one-room flat. A cancer patient died here before I moved in, and I swear sometimes I can smell his last, sour gasps that somehow got trapped in the cracked plaster.
Absently, I spin the gold wedding band, pick up my drink, gulp.
It took me 20 minutes and some steel wool to erase what you had engraved into the gold.
Still falling.
Ha.
Fell right out of my life – and into his arms.
Cheers.
Solace, Distilled
I’m three-fifths into my second gin & tonic, mixed haphazardly in a pint beer glass. As I sip, the wind sends crisp leaves skittering across the cracked concrete in front of my flat.
That fancy atomic clock, with it’s digital thermometer, says the ambient temperature is 21 degrees.
And I know what you’re thinking, “Bub, time to put the summer drinks away, aim for something a bit more seasonal-appropriate, maybe a rum and Coke or most certainly a Manhattan (down, in a highball, two cherries, just the way you like it).”
And to conventional wisdom, I say fuck it. And raise my glass in a silent toast to non-conformity.
I’m not out for my junior alcoholism merit badge, honorable mention, second place.
I’m drinking myself to death.
Plastic gin and vodka bottles packed in the freezer, party jugs of bourbon, rum, Scotch on the counters, cases of beer in the fridge, which have crowded everything else out but the condiments in the door.
My third gin & tonic is gin, ice and lime. Tonic? I’m fresh out - besides, it just gets in the way.
I rest my head in my palm, elbow resting on the wobbly two-chair kitchenette in my shitty, one-room flat. A cancer patient died here before I moved in, and I swear sometimes I can smell his last, sour gasps that somehow got trapped in the cracked plaster.
Absently, I spin the gold wedding band, pick up my drink, gulp.
It took me 20 minutes and some steel wool to erase what you had engraved into the gold.
Still falling.
Ha.
Fell right out of my life – and into his arms.
Cheers.
Comments
How was the leek soup?
i dunno why, you tell me...