The night was mayhem, pure and simple. It started out simply enough, a little party in Jess� new inner city flat. Bret, his bestest friend in the whole wide world, was invited, and Jess handed out multi-coloured Hawaiian leis as they entered. Jess was also wearing a skirt in a tropical, flowery, pattern, which tugged them away from wintry downtown Wellington to a far off tropical island (or maybe just to Waiheke � they couldn�t really afford to go any further). But everything seemed to go pear-shaped for Jem when Taika turned up with a bottle of Absinthe and one of his antique Absinthe spoons (Jess provided sugar cubes), followed by Arezoo, laden with Export Gold, having just visited the New World Metro below.

Jem�s weakness was Export Gold. Somehow, it made him nostalgic for wheelbarrows and spanners, and that good old Kiwi lifestyle that you can only really experience when you�re up to your knees in mud somewhere out in the wop wops. So he took a bottle. Or two. In fact, maybe the whole lot. But the others didn�t seem to mind.

Jess had provided a bottle of something pink for herself, and was happily sipping away from the bottle in the corner. Arezoo had finished some rather flat Vanilla Coke, and, due to her completely hyperactive nature, was flying around the flat like a bat out of hell screaming at �Rachel� to shut up. Her bobble hat was pulled down over her eyes, and at random intervals she would shove her red lei into her mouth and chew on it for a short while, then resume her screaming at the phantom girl.

Far away from this, however, Bret and Taika formed a merry little crowd watching what looked like a magical Zen water fountain to Jem. In fact, Taika was just pouring water over a sugar cube into his Absinthe, but it looked cool to Jem all the same. Suddenly, Jem got up from his slump on the PVC-covered couch, flung out his arms and said:

�For me my glory is an
Humble ephemeral Absinthe
Drunk on the sly, with fear of treason
and if I drink it no longer,
it is for a good reason.�

Then he sat back down.

Jem then noticed his vision was a bit blurry, �Ok, maybe I won�t be able to get through a whole dozen tonight,� he mumbled to no-one in particular, and put his Export Gold down on what looked like a little coffee table. It was, in fact, one of Jess� many cats, but as it was sleeping and didn�t get up, Jem did not find out this fact until morning. He did find out, however, that his vision was actually not blurry, as he had originally though. His glasses were just covered in beer, probably thrown from the bottle in his poetic gesture of earlier.

Jem was elated at this discovery. He could drink more beer! Not being able to find the beer he had put down before, Jem got himself a new one and began to waltz around the room, playing an imaginary guitar. Bret watched on from his seat beside Taika, quite content to continue dunking his nifty teabag-with-string into the mug of almost-boiling water in front of him (Jess� teapot was being used as a feeding vessel for her cats). As Jem twirled past him, now with an imaginary tuba, Bret noticed Jess passed out on the floor, her flowered skirt splayed around her like a discarded paper fan. He looked at Jem, spinning madly, he looked at Jess. Then Bret looked at Jem again. Bret smirked.

Sunlight filtered through the cracks of his eyelids, and Jem woke to find himself staring at a pair of puma sneakers. Looking up, he saw Bret grinning at him and holding a camera. �Oh crap,� thought Jem, �last time I woke up like this, Bret made me wear fishnets when we performed for a week!�

* Jem's random poetic burst is by Verlaine, and I found it at feeverte.net. Don't ask.