Reasons for Not Drinking Part II - It goes down. It comes up.

We are home. It is not a good time to be home. It is the bad hour, five aye em. The cold, clammy hand of sobriety clamps itself of the backs of our necks and say, you're nicked.  We need something to take, and fast. There is nothing. We rummage through cupboards and he finds a packet of nutmeg. How despicable is that. That's what you take when you are about 13. Don't do that, for fuck's sake. Have some self respect, man.

He mixes half the packet into a large glass of cheap powdered orange juice and sculls it. He retches a bit, but takes it like a man. OK OK OK. i mix the other half into a large glass of cheap powdered orange juice and scull it. It is as vile as it would be. It goes down. It comes up. It lies on the kitchen floor in a greasy puddle and sneers at me. Defeated, i wander off to the bedroom. Vowing sententiously never to sleep in a bed again until i am reunited with my beloved (whoever the hell that is) i lie down on the floor.

Nevertheless i wake up in a bed. The first thing i notice is someone left the lights on. And i am still wearing my earrings. In fact i am still wearing the little retro black woollen suit that unfortunately never actually does make me look like Audrey Hepburn, regardless of my state of consciousness. i roll over. A pile of vomit sits snugly among the huddled bedding. It is sweating slightly in the gathered sunlight, and a little crust adorns its top, like a bun. I am strangely fascinated by it. Titanium rainbows writhe in my brain. I watch them. Then a hot wire of pain is pulled through the darkness inside my skull, and it is all on.

An entirely undeserved sense of beatitude washes over me. It is morning, or at least what passes for morning, being some time before five pee em. Time to do it all again.