Throbthrob

He could barely see any more. He was drunk, drunk out of his mind, drunk out of the world, drunk out of everything. The world had long since turned woozy, and all the colours had flashed into blinding, brilliant shades of black.

He stumbled tumbled fumbled down down down, and as he went he thought a thought. An image: a girl. Twenty-four. Beautiful. Tall. Slender. Dark dark eyes. Smile like a fountain flowing. Anything else? No, no. That's it.

Through his confused bemused imbibed mind, he could almost still smell her. You never notice, he thought blearily, you just never notice how important smell is. Smell, that ugly duckling sister to the eyes, the hands, the lips. You never notice until it's too late.

He stepped into something, something squishy and icky. He barely noticed, pausing a second to scrape his foot on on on ... something hard. That's all he knew, and could he try and figure it out he could yes he could but he didn't want to not now not now.

He thought thought but the images flashed now, rushing through this densely slowly shifting last few weeks. They had met and and danced at at but but he he ...

He gave up. The pain intense sharp clogged up his insides and made him want to vomit vomit. He knew he would he was so drunk he was so very very drunk and his head it hurt and his feet they hurt so bad so bad but he didn't couldn't wouldn't care any any more. Any any more more.

Cynicism inevitably seeps in, into that secret little place where hope lives, and stamps it out. Since Pandora, it's always been the same old story. Hope against Reality. Cynicism against Optimism. If you play your cards right, you can remember what you are beneath the anger and frustration and hopelessly failed dreams, and you can keep to that. But every once in a while, the Other does creep in, and does take over, and then - for a day, a week, a month - you aren't who you want to be.

He was out, out of the disco now, out onto the road and red the car lights racing away and white the headlight on his right and black the sky and grey the moon and white the water white the building white the trees and white the dreams.

Then the white white headlight drove him down, and suddenly: Oops. Too late.