What a night! What a party! Stumbling home with a mouth that feels like sandpaper to my tongue and with a residual taste of vindaloo, I seek out a late-night drug store.
My frazzled brain screams for something to counteract the excessive drink. I look at the counter unable to make a choice, pain relief or stomach relief, vitamins, or rehydration fluids or all of them.
I’m amazed to see a leprechaun sitting on the shelf beside the paracetamol. I rub my eyes in disbelief but he’s still there - a little man in a green jacket, short green trousers, a green hat and sporting a bushy red beard. “Go home,” he tells me, “Have a full Irish breakfast; bacon, sausages, eggs (scrambled or fried), white pudding, a grilled tomato, beans, mushrooms, hash browns plus toast with butter and jam.”
I rush out of the store and vomit in the street at the thought of such a disgusting meal and decide I’m never going to drink again.
At least not until the next time.
I return to the drugstore. At the same counter, the little green leprechaun mockingly says, “Hello again, eejit”. I tell him to bugger off, pick up two bottles of a very unnatural blue fluid full of electrolytes. The cashier was grateful for the Plexiglas screen when I paid, shielding him from the unpleasantness of my inebriated state.
Outside, I gargled the first mouthful of blueness and quickly drank the rest of the bottle. The second bottle defied my uncoordinated ability to open it, so with an expletive I threw it, narrowly missing my intended lamppost target --- and staggered homeward.
As I lurch along, I become increasingly alarmed at the prospect of my live-in girlfriend Alice’s reaction to my arrival, if she is awake.
Of course, Alice will be awake! She’s seen me inebriated before and would not be surprised to find me sleeping it off on the couch. But, like a truffle searching Lagotto dog, I’m concerned that she will detect the scent of another woman buried beneath my musk of booze, smoke, body odour and vindaloo.
Earlier in the evening, Amanda and I had found ourselves in a comfortable corner where silly, drink-fuelled jokes progressed to a full-on snog. She gave approving moans through our attached mouths as my hand reached under her blouse to locate her breast. Embarrassingly, her hand to my crotch found me with a brewer's droop which prematurely ended our coupling; Amanda pulled away - “Another time, eh, John!”
I consoled myself with a final pint of Guinness and left. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of Amanda with the young Shaun Ferris. Maybe she’ll have better luck with him.
I arrive and fumble, eventually finding the key to open the door to the staircase leading to my first-floor flat. There seem to be more stairs than I remember. As I reach the last step, I trip, keys clattering to the concrete floor. I attempt to stand but my knees seem unable to accommodate my weighty frame. I crawl to my front door, sensing a warm liquid on my chin, my tongue tasting blood from a split lip. And then I see that damn leprechaun again, watching me as I struggle. “You bloody eejit.” I tell him to “Fuck off” unlock the flat door, closing it as quickly as I could to leave the little bastard outside.
I recall nothing until a whisper in my ear says, “Would you like a black coffee?” I’m lying on the couch, fully clothed feeling like yesterday’s, warmed-over, bubble and squeak. A nod from me gets a mug of the hot, obsidian liquid deliberately slammed loudly onto the coffee table next to the leprechaun - how did he get in here? The little man says to me, “She knows, eejit”
Alice angrily adds - “Quite the night eh, John, you idiot? When you are clearer headed you had better have a fucking good story to tell me about that woman you were with.”
Chris Lihou lives in Somerset. In retirement, Chris has become addicted to writing short stories that speak to the nature of our lives - its highs and lows, our pain and joy, our desires and losses, life’s quirks and realities, and even a bit of its silliness. His first self-published book, "Fifty More or Less,” is available on Amazon. A second one, Fifty or More, is in its final stages, before publication.
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