I managed to give him a hybrid look between ‘are you kidding’ and ‘you evil bastard’ but judging from his subsequent smirk it must have looked like a bug had flown into my eye. He scooted me over and sat down. Took the drink from my hands and brough it to his lips, only to return it again.”

“Good stuff. So are you staying here for the night?”

“Im joining a convent in the morning.”

He laughed and tried to pull me upright, but by this time I had gone completely limp and felt like dead weight being shifted. So he laid me back down, hooked his arms under mine and put me upright like a ragdoll. And that’s how I felt.

“You alright?”

I nodded.

My slur disgusted me – the more I tried to speak normally, the lazier my tongue was, clumsily falling against the walls of my mouth. Come to think of it, I must have looked a pitiful sight, sitting there, looking at him forlornly. Quietly begging forgiveness for just being a female who wanted to be loved.

He gave me a quick hug and tucked the bottles under his arm.

“Go to sleep Arden. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

And with that he left.

Outside there were people snaking home, shouting lyrics to songs that didn’t register in my inebriated mind. Laughing, falling over in the dark.

I decided that if I’m going to be sitting here alone anyway I might as well try to sober up somewhat. I can’t eat , if I put anymore into my stomach I may just throw up, so I’ll just starve instead. Husserl’s mind-body philosophy comes to mind - for once my body and mind is feeling the same thing. Maybe my love for my bottled friend can be justified by some smart-ass philosopher.

Maybe I’m just trying to merge my body and mind so that I can feel some version of wholeness these stupid self-help books keep ranting on about. I hate self-help books. I can imagine a pompous, black-moustached, pudgy psychologist sitting behind a desk thinking up random things to diagnose us mortals with. His library of pages filled with jargon and statistics to back him up. We’re just grasshoppers in his glass jar. And I’m the only one who sees this huge motherfucking eye looking at me. I feel so selfconscious I could die.

Instead, I sidle up closer to the edge of the couch and pass out.

The shy morning rays gradually became more demanding and forced one eye open with its sheer illumination. I tried to sit up but once the blood started moving I just slid back down…my head didn’t hurt, it was just as if someone had tried cramming 5 years’ worth of newspapers in there. It felt cramped and dusty. As my eyes tried to find a still-standing spot on the ceiling , the last night’s events returned like syrup : slowly and bittersweetly. I suddenly got a monstrous urge to drink a reservoir’s worth of water and proceeded to get up, but painstakingly slowly.

DEAD FROM THE WAIST UP

This, people, is an experiment. Kirstin will recognise these characters from way back , but I had to start rewriting it because the original story was just too terrible to bear. So this is draft 2, but I still think there's something missing. Here's the first two pages. Please excuse typos, stupid word choices and everything else. Rant please ;)

Life with Spaulding was always interesting. Sometimes disturbing, unbelievable, crude, but always interesting. We lived the life in a far off apartment close to the best watering holes – human traffic is a common sight and forms part of our coming and going.

The thing about Spaulding is that he was the quintessential male chauvinist pig that chick –lit novels describe. But to pin him to a single description would be a great injustice. He’s a best friend, a horny boyfriend, a shoulder, a hand.

All this musing is making my head hurt. Although maybe it’s the double vodkas Ive been chugging so religiously the past 3 hours. I know its strange to start a story smack in the middle of inebriation’s plateau, but Im a cynic and don’t believe in fairytales. A cynic has licence to do or say anything and write it down to nihilism. Personally I think Cinderella was a crackwhore who had kleptomania. Sleeping Beauty? Orgy queen. I mean, who in their right mind lives with 7 obviously sexually starved males? EW man. Fucking EW. She definitely died of some STDs.

Anyway…..now where was I? Ohhh damnit. I just spilled half my drink off the balcony. If you were wondering, Im sitting on the balcony of my friend Nina’s flat. There are a few things you can see from here : a few windows….red roofs….one green one hehehehe……some lights in the distance. The others are inside playing Cheat, the only game our friend Gavin knows how to win consistently. My body feels wonderfully numb without me losing the ability to think clearly. From somewhere “Karma Chameleon” is drifting into earshot. Good lord man. 80’s? Despite myself my head is bobbing up and down and I find myself singing about someone being a lover, not a rival. Oh how wrong they are.

Which coincidentally brings me to how I got to live with Spaulding in the first place – it happened on this same balcony.

We were all here about a year ago , strangely enough also playing Cheat. Nina knew Spaulding from class; they were both selling their souls to commerce one module at a time. Me? I’m part of the biggest joke troupe on campus. Im a BA student. And by joke troupe I mean faculty who doesn’t get credit even though they shape human understanding of the world. Why didn’t they just call us “Mythology” , stuffed us into a closet and set us adrift on the Adriatic Sea? Bloody hell . Mind you, this was before I was any the wiser. I’d hate to say a man made me this way but Its sort of hard to get around that if you know the story. Im just going to say I don’t trust them.

Well actually, before the Cheat part, I noticed this guy in my class – tall, dark hair, sort of pudgy, curlyish hair and bee-stung lips. He was also not really a talker, as I would find out much later. I would surreptitously eye him as he came into class. Relishing any movement, any sideways glance I could hungrily gain from when he moved in his seat. He wasn’t overly attractive even…there was just something mysterious about him. And so weeks wore on with him ever noticing me. Some variation of adoration blossomed uninvited.

So one night Nina invites me over and as soon as she opens the door, I see him comfortably draped over a chair like a big puffy beanbag. I walk in and she introduces me to everyone collectively (“Everyone, this is Arden, Arden, this is everyone….” ) and he lifts a finger halfheartedly in my direction. That’s just wonderful.

As the burnt orange walls of my friend’s flat meshed into one big blur and my blood heated, they decided to go somewhere to continue the party, preferably where there was more space. So we trudged off, remarking of the coldness and a few pseudo-philosophic things about being drunk. After a while someone turns to say something to Winston. That’s what his name was. He was gone. So, they sent me back to go fetch him .

Walking through the door, I see him splayed out on the couch. “Well. Come on then. They’re waiting for you.” After I spat out my message unceremoniously, I stood there waiting. I felt dumb as he clearly did not intend to get up. Instead, he patted the small space next to him and told me to come sit with him for a minute. Warning lights flashed, sirens went off in my head, but I waved them on with a limp wrist. He slipped an arm around me and was pressing me against him. If it was possible , I would say I felt alarmed, elated and depressed at the same time.

Alarmed : drunk men with needs arent fun to fight against.

Elated : Finally…finally he was noticing me.

Depressed : something beautiful could happen and he won’t remember a second of it.

Only when he pressed his lips against my neck did the trichotomy siphon out of my system and I decided “screw it.” Im just going to let it happen this one time.

Keep in mind I was sitting perfectly still, every second lagging to the point of madness, waiting. Then suddenly my sweater came off and tentacle like hands were all over, making greedy indentations in my flesh. I sprang up, completely freaked off my head. Looking at him accusingly and snatching my garments from him clearly only made me look like the guilty party because he promptly got up, grunted and mumbled something about women not knowing what they want. And with that his clumsy form trudged outwards.

I fell back into a high backed chair and clutched my clothes to me. The material suddenly felt soiled and I felt angry at myself, perhaps more at my blind idealism than anything else. My hero had feet of clay and his victim had legs of jelly. How fucking appropriate.

I pulled on my clothes and my hand encircled the brandy. Suddenly the bottle looked so grotesque – the feeling of my inadequacy was overwhelming and acute. So I poured a double and lay back with the glass resting on my chest. Wasn’t that just men for you. If you don’t fit comfortably into the categories of meal ticket or piece of ass youre completely useless to them and should be ignored where possible. In case of a feminist rant in their direction the defence tactic would be to stare out blankly and pretend to not know what’s going on. It usually works.

While I was swearing off the stronger gender Spaulding had managed to come in and was standing next to me with a smirk on his face. “Did he get good action?”

This is where my thingies are going to be published! Any manner of nonsense and fiction, ideas, poetry etc etc things you don't normally want to read is on here! Comment! Send hate mail! I dont care, just say something :)