thethemeis: New Year's Resolutions
theauthoris: Deadbeat
Fuck! Why am I always
such a massive twat? It's only an online short story thing with a few
friends of mine, nothing which will affect me in any way in the
future barring perhaps a brief conversation down the pub. But still,
if I can't even get myself sorted enough to contribute to something
as small as that which, if i'm completely honest with myself, i've
been quite looking forward to all week, how the fuck am I ever going
to find the self-discipline and motivation to sort myself out this
year.
I knew when I ordered
that 3rd & 4th pint that there was only one
way that day was going to end. I discussed briefly with myself the
unlikely chance that i'd be able to edit and upload my currently
unfinished piece of work by that evening, but even still I convinced
myself that I might just call a day whilst only semi-pissed and be
able to go home and finish up. I had no excuses either, i'd already
claimed to be done and what a tit i'd look if I couldn't deliver now.
It was only a small lie, one that in no way needed to be made. Much
like the majority I squeeze into everyday conversations, almost for
sport.
And yet, here I was.
Lying in my bed gone midday in a puddle of my own vomit and
embarrassment desperately trying to put together the clues and
snapshot memories to work out what potential ridiculous things I
could have said or done. My paranoia is always always in his element
at times like this. He feeds me the scraps and suggests all possible
obscene and anti-social outcomes that could have arisen.
“You know what
you're like when you've been drinking. You could say and do anything.
And if just a small fraction of the obscene thoughts and hatred that
runs through his mind creeps out, then we're in big trouble aren't
we.”
It's a game that we
play, my subconscious and me. He suggests what he can think of as the
most horrific faux pas for me to say or do in any given social
situation. Then I have to try and carry on acting vaguely sane whilst
not letting the thought slip out my head. Our relationship never used
to be this hostile, we used to a team me and him. In my teenage years
he would supply me with cutting edge offensive jokes and obscene
sexual acts which I would spout out to adoring crowds. Back then all
you had to do was prepared to go one step further and you could carve
out a niche for yourself, create an identity. But as time went on and
people “matured”, going to the extreme was no longer enough. I
tried a different approached and dropped the redundant obscenely
offensive tactic. He couldn't. After years of being the head
speech-writer he missed the fawning applause over his work. He still
had his odd moments of glory, but he became bitter and twisted,
distorting his off-colour comedy into something far more anti-social.
Most of the time I barely even notice him, like an attention seeking
child that nobody bothers to respond to, but the more I drink, the
less attentive I become and the mor chance he has of getting his
grubby little hands on the wheel.
“So, did he get
his way?”
My subconscious was
just sitting there giggling maliciously to himself. He knew just as
much as I did about what had happened the night before, but already
the situation I found myself in played into his human car-crash
fetish.
“I...I don't know.”
“Getting that
pissed in the pub you work in, how could you be so fucking stupid!
Time and time again i've told you, if you're going to do it then do
it somewhere full of people you'll never see again. I've know what
you think of some of those people, I've heard we he's said about
them.”
“...I
think i'm safe. I'm sure nothing happened. I can't remember anything
bad.”
“You can't
remember anything. What about at the end? There was some sort of
disagreement at the end, by the dart board or something.”
“...Erm,
yeah. No...i'm fairly sure it was nothing. Can't of been anything,
there's nothing wrong with me is there. A few scrapes, a stubbed toe,
only self-inflicted, clumsy injuries. What about my stuff, is my
stuff alright?”
Without
properly leaving my bed I conduct the usual scrambling search for my
pocket essentials. Keys? Check. Phone? Check. Ipod? Check, and still
working fine. Wallet? Check, though no money in it. And my card, shit
what have I done with my debit card! Few, it's clumsily tucked into
the wrong compartment of my wallet, but it's all there. Still, I feel
like I lost something last night, something big, something important.
Oh
no! Shit, I couldn't have. No, surely not, ...my laptop.
I
dig around under my bed for the white machine which consumes 90% of
my free-time. I find it and it looks clean enough. A little dirty but
it's been through worse. It's had its fair share of tea and biscuits
poured onto it and soldiered on regardless, hopefully this is just
another feeble attack that it'll shrug off. What the fuck would I do
with myself without my laptop, i'd have to watch more TV, or worse,
start reading books. I took a deep breath and opened the lid. Fuck,
fuck, fuck! The smell itself told me that it had taken a battering.
My stomach wasn't ready for the smell this early in the morning, but
I had to know. I held down the power button and was greeted with a
predictable and unpleasant long bleep as if the machine itself was
berating me for what I had done to it.
My
sub-conscious roared up again, he hadn't had this much fun in a long
time.
“YOU STUPID CUNT! THAT'S GOT TO BE THE MOST EXPENSIVE NIGHT EVER!
IT MAKES GETTING INTO THAT STRANGERS CAR AND HANDING OVER HUNDREDS OF
POUNDS LOOK VAGUELY FUCKING SENSIBLE! YOU'VE REALLY OUTDONE YOURSELF
THIS TIME YOU USELESS CUNT!”
“You
can't do anything with that. You take that to get repaired and
they'll open it up, be hit with that smell and throw the fucking
thing away. Then they'll stand around and laugh at us, they'll call
you in to deliver the news and stand around everyone knowing, saying
“There's the idiot that vomited all over his laptop.” You'll have
to destroy it and make sure you smash it up completely. You don't
want anyone putting it back together and finding out what you've been
doing, what we've been occupying your time with!”
I didn't like to admit it but my paranoia was right, he nearly always
was. And above everything else I still couldn't finish and upload my
story. It was gone, it was all gone. The collection of half finished
songs and musical ideas I'd been hoarding for the past few years.
They weren't great and in truth most would probably always remain
unfinished, but it was comforting knowing they were there. It meant I
had been doing something. It meant that even though anyone looking in
on my life would see nothing to be particularly proud of (beyond
never committing any heinous in-humane acts) I could always tell
myself that I was an undiscovered musical genius with a few aces in
the pack should it come to it. Oh bugger, all the hours i'd spent
playing those games too, gone. It's not often seen as a great use of
time, but if nothing else it gives the feeling of doing something. A
way of documenting passing time. And it was all gone. So much for
starting the new year in a proactive manner.
Still, I could still get something out of this yet. This might just
be the event which forces my hand, making me start something i've
planned to for a while. After all, it's not too late. 13 days into
the new year is nothing, I can make a vow now and stick to it just as
rigidly. That's it, I will. From now until next year, I won't touch
another drop of alcohol. I know it seems like a melodramatic
knee-jerk reaction, but it's something thought about doing for a long
time. This isn't the first time i've waken up in a pool of my own
vomit and whilst I haven't kept count, I wouldn't be too surprised to
hear I was into double figures. Plenty of times I have gone one step
too far, where there is always the potential to make a complete cock
of yourself.
“You
can laugh it off now and then, but sooner or later everyone will just
grow fucking tired of you.”
And whilst drinking in moderation seems like the obvious solution,
that's something that i'm supposed to have been doing for the past
two years, but I simply haven't. It's not that I find myself longing
for a drink at any point, the majority of the time I just do it
because it's what you do in those situations. The problem is that
I'll either have a few or get completely plastered. I've never
mastered mid-range drinking (unless I really run out of money). It's
just that once you've popped your head in for a bit, you begin to
remember why you've done it so many times before. For me, Charles
Bukowski put it best:
“When
you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t
have you by the throat. “
Even
my paranoia loosens his grip. He might even start fighting my corner,
telling me i'm not in the wrong or maybe that the girl across the
room really does like the look of me. Though he'll never admit to it
the morning after. But that sort of habit is a bad one to get into.
Maybe if I can avoid the stuff for a year. Learn to have a good time
and relax among the swarming masses. Maybe I can go back and finally
master that mid-range drinking. Finally wake up after a night of
drinking, with a full set of memories and a vomit-free bed. Bliss.
So
that's what i'll do, my January 14th
resolution: No
alcohol for a year.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That
evening back at work and it turns out I wasn't anywhere near as bad
as I thought I might be. If anything I good quite a good reaction to
my night of heavy drinking, perhaps I over-exaggerated the whole
thing. At the end of my shift my boss poured my drink. It'd be rude
to say no and besides, what harm can one do.
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