Vodka Revs.

So I've started to write a novel, or rather, a series of novels, four in total. They may never be published, they may never be read, but it's something I've always wanted to do. I don't want to get to the end of my life and look back and think "what if" or "should have". No fear, no regrets. For your viewing pleasure, here is a snippet from book 3, chapter entitled "Vodka Revs".

That familiar feeling was sinking in, threatening to create a long night of loneliness, anger, self hatred and paranoia. It was looking like another endless night of despair for Mike. He had an event to go to, some student party thrown by some company desperate for an influx of new minds. "Ha, if they get minds like mine, they'll be quickly wishing for the old ones" Mike whispered vehemently to himself. The long walk there to sit in fake happiness with people he didn't know for a cause he didn't believe in proved a less than tempting possiblity, but he knew he had to get out of his funk or he'd end up in trouble again. The sort of trouble leading to a late night of drinking by himself and turning himself into the hospital at 3 in the morning.

There has to be a time to change. A time when you decide that NO, that will not be your fate. It doesn't have to be that way. Armed with such thoughts, Mike picked up his phone and sent a group text.

"Hey guys, going to Vodka Revs tonight for some business thing, free cocktails! Anyone fancy coming?"

The usual false enthusiasm which was all he could seem to muster, true enthusiasm lost so far back it might never have been.

The sky darkened outside as he sat alone and waited for a response, the clouds sulking across the face of the moon while the wind moaned against the windows, complaining to be let in from the cold, adding to his sullen mood. One text, two, three, all excuses, too busy, too tired, not my thing, the usual reasons. After all, why would anyone want to head out in the cold to sit in a bar being talked at by falsely overenthusiastic young employees in the hope of sneaking one watered down cocktail too many?

"Yeah sure, what time?"

A response. And then another. Time for the game face. In truth, Mike was desperate for a drink, the cool feel of a cider in the throat, or better yet vodka and coke, double, ice of course to take up more space - more vodka, less coke. A little something to drown the self loathing. And a little company to make sure he didn't damn well drown himself while he was at it.

With a resigned sigh, he shuffled his coat on and started on the long walk into town, the close dark at first hugging him like a blanket, before the strange half light from the streetlights cloaked the world and made everything seem surreal, fuzzy and out of focus, and then suddenly too sharp as he came closer. A world outlined in stark shapes of shadow and relief. The kind of light in which you could walk forever, timeless, the world never changing, shapes and shadows blending, merging and splitting again. An endless, timeless world, for an endless, timeless existence.

And then suddenly, from a side street, into the harsh, glaring, too bright light of the main road, students drunkenly stumbling already, everything too loud, false people going about their false lives, forced happiness, boisterousness, postering, trying to emulate their idea of what a student should be, a parody of a parody. All that faked confidence, each and every person the centre of their own universe in which they must be the brightest star, each and every one of them a step away from going supernova, from shattering like a dropped mirror into a million tiny pieces. It was with these dark thoughts Mike arrived at the bar, sneering around at the hysteric masses, the fights waiting to happen, at the women who would no doubt end the night on their backs in some grungy bedroom and start their next day with painful heads and painful cunts as their rewards, shame burning hot upon their backs, only to do it all over again another night. The endless, pointless, hysteric futility with which humanity fills it's days.

A drink, a drink. Anything so he could join the foolish masses and make his own mistakes, his own regrets, stop THINKING once more and start DOING without a thought or a care. A drink, a drink. No consequences, no regrets. At least not until tomorrow. Tonight was all that mattered.