DrunkBy Mike Hoang

The local watchmen discovered his body five hundred meters away from a local pub, seemingly untouched. Strayed across the cold pavement, and up to this point, no one seemed to notice

How could we remain such apathetic creatures after what seems to be a decade of being aware of reality. The thickness and golden years of our existence, layers of indemnity built upon one another to protect our vulnerable insides, becoming emotionless conformists of society. A young lad slouched on top of a counter and ordered a glass from the bartender. The thick and golden whisky slide its way towards his shadowed face, covering darkened eyelids and a stale expression. They greeted each other as if they were childhood friends, which they might as well have been. The girl of his life, the "maybe shell be the right one this time woman that he had always searched for. A young man impacted by the influx of hormonal adrenaline; blindness consumed him, a mere university graduate, as he stumbled into a journey presented in nothing but oblivion. He was enslaved by love, falling into a pit where climbing out is unfortunately beyond the bounds of possibility. The beautiful apparition has been the subject of his life, and even after the years have moved on, the ragged and directionless young man continued to float in what seems to be a journey towards nothing, all because love was something that never worked for him. He lifted the glass up, the music around him was getting increasingly loud; Chasing Cars was being played over the background noise of blurred out conversations between other interesting youthful people on a Friday night, and the constant ringing of the entrance doors bell. If he hadnt chased love, maybe he wouldnt have crashed into the immense force that pushed against him. It was a gentle push, interlocking the connection where infatuation overfilled his human veins. A drunken sensation takes over; he became an alcoholic of love. He pulled away from the glass, whisky overspill slides off the side of his mouth, and his empty eyes turned up to the overhanging lights. Blurred and blankness was all that the young man could feel. A familiar feeling now, something he had felt enflaming his chest when she had left him for the clouds. There are things that cannot be explained in this world; things which come and go. People would exist in your life, leaving you with emotions that would just one day disappear forever. However you would only hope that these things that you treasure in your heart, would one day revive again. She had given him so much empty hope. Through all those endless nights they spent drinking out their hearts desire, and jokingly create inconspicuous remarks about their blubber-headed philosophy lecturer; who had far more ethical reasons for why he should have the next dozen of donuts than why fundamentalism is dangerous for the youthful minds in our society. Those days where they would laugh moronically at everything they could pick out from the interesting conversations of people they had passed, to old stumpy buildings. Those nights which they had fallen completely drunk on each others lips over the cloud-cushioned bed. She had shown him what it meant to be happy, be drunk, and take in the joy of being alive in this world. But unfortunately, it was too late for him to know the price of such blissful moments. A prince lost his princess, a Clyde lost his Bonnie; a lover lost his angel. She too had paid the price of emotional attachments, previous relationships which sapped the life out of her. Ceaseless boulders of stress and perpetual weight emotion fell upon her. She no longer took the joy in the living anymore, and any of his efforts to be compliant with her were long futile. Her departure shocked him to tears, as if he had lost a childhood friend forever. It had been the last of their relationship, and their journey had ended on the twenty-fifth of August, the same day which he had found her in the crowd of interesting young people at a local city pub.

What will they all think of me once they find out? he thought. One more glass, please, the young man ordered from the bartender. The chairs were all up on the tables, cleaned and ready to wrap up. The music was off, and all the conversations had been taken elsewhere. The bartender refused to reciprocate, Youve had too much son, go home and have some rest. Puzzled, the young man forcefully turns to different directions, gazing at the empty room. Where is everyone?, he asks the bartender. They had left your party, everyone was wondering where you disappeared off to, the bartender put on his coat and hat. The young man had lost a sense of time and being, how many drinks he had, how did he end up here, Had she come? he asked. The older, coated figure shakes his head and makes his way out the door. How could we remain such lonely creatures, if we have the entire world around us. The young man looks down on his half-finished glass with his stale expression and darkened eyelids. He never got to finish it; the last words he never got to say, and his goodbyes he never gave. He shuts his eyes tight and gulped down the last of the grave substance. Things that leave never come back, especially when it was sent beyond the skies. He left the pub with his glass empty, and his body was found in the middle of the road five hundred meters away. His golden years were all but wasted.