Smashed
By : Osiris
With
ABBA echoing in my head I while stumble into the car. It is more out of habit than
actual mental work that I find my balance on the incline. Standing there, I
felt even dizzier as my alcohol drenched world inclined further. Downwards. And then some.
Clambering up, singing
ABBA still, I find the window seat as the only seat available for me. Settling
in there anyway, I lean heavily on the glass. The van
is cool. I shiver and rub my arms through the three-fourths blouse that I was
wearing. My mother sits beside me and tells me to turn down the thermostat. I
am too happy to oblige as my frozen fingers fumble in the near darkness of the
van, at 10 something in the evening. Finding the knob
more out of default than any brain work, I turn it down to the lowest.
I
had been freezing the moment the feverish first hour of my drunken state left
me. Looking back now, as I am slightly a little bit more sober and more level
headed, I realize how wonderful the world was when you are blissfully drunk.
I
had said the same thing while being drunk. In the van and making our way out of
the subdivision, I said rather slurringly that the world is oh so wonderful
when you are drunk. You can put reality on hold for those several moments and
forget your inhibitions and have something to blame it on afterwards.
Mama
tells me to shut my trap before she gets mad at me. I lessen the volume but
babble on incessantly. She snaps at me and I know I am at the brink of being
someone mama is mad at. I shut my trap.
Slouching,
I look out of the window and feel my head droop. For a moment, an impossible
explanation found its way into my head. I have always tried to find an
explanation for everything, and they’re usually correct. Unfortunately, my
brain was submerged in chardonnay and apples. It refused to be logical.
The
reason my head was heavy, hiccupped my drowning brain, was that all the alcohol
that I drank, roughly half the wine bottle, had been lighter than water. Now,
since the body is 80% water, the alcohol floated to the highest point above the
water, namely my head.
I
told my brain to shut its trap.
And
for once it did.
I
floated off in an out of several sensations but without my brain to process it,
I just felt numb with faint slivers and ghosts of feeling. Hovering in that
near catatonic state, I fell into the Sandman’s embrace, leaning on mama
slightly.
Awaking to a sore ass and a violently
protesting lower back, I groan myself to a post-drunken-state and a
pre-hangover one. Looking towards the front where my Lola sat and her paramour
drove, the Skyway stretched before us, empty and long. For a moment, I had a
feeling we were all alone in the world.
When
a car passed by us the illusion was shattered and I moaned again. Mama awoke
and told me to sit up so my back wouldn’t ache so much. I didn’t have the heart
to tell her the real reason for my moan.
I have
had enough of my illusions shattered by cruel reality. I really shouldn’t
shatter hers. I really shouldn’t.
I
pushed myself up and winced. The toll gate loomed before us and I blinked,
blinded momentarily by the lights. I wish I were back in Laguna, it was darker
there. The dark felt more like home than the house we were going back to. The
dark had nothing to lose. The dark was emptiness. Not like the house. The house
was loss not emptiness. The way it just stood there, waiting for the bank to
take itself away from us infuriated me. The way it didn’t react when the car
was sold and drove away with another owner taking away my possible freedom and
a multitude of memories.
Never
mind that a house wasn’t supposed to react. It should’ve reacted. It should’ve.
My
stomach tightened and I fought down the urge to hurl.
Iwillnotvomitinthecariwillnotvomitinthecariwillnotvomitinthecar
Since my brain was still reeling from the
onslaught of alcohol it received, it just nodded back at me. My stomach
reluctantly settled down and shut up. Leaning my hot forehead against the icy
cool of the window, I wondered vaguely if I was going to survive this car ride.
In
the blur of the glassesless sight that I had, I made out vague lights of cars
and a traffic light. The world is wonderful when you’re blissfully drunk, I
said. But it is even more wonderful when you are blissfully drunk and you can’t
see a damn thing. Mama was sleeping and didn’t tell me to shut my trap.
I
looked down and found out that this time, it was mama leaning
on my shoulder, not the other way around. I moved my arm around her and hugged
her close to me. Once upon a time, she held me like this. I guess it would be
my duty now to do so as well.
She
was heavy, but I probably was heavier than her. For a moment, I imagined
holding her close like this while she died. She told me that her time here on
earth was short and I believed her. I alone believed her fully. I alone
understood her eyes. Dad said it was because we were both Cancerians. I think
he’s only half right. I think it’s because we are going to the same hell.
Except mama didn’t have a birthmark on her shoulder. One like the one Jesus
Christ supposedly had. Pasang Krus.
She had told me back then. I was born to carry a cross.
Mama
was my cross. Dad was my cross. A whole horde of things were my cross. But I
will have to bear it. Just like Jesus did.
But
He didn’t have his own cross fighting against him, making it heavier than it
really was.
With
a burst of color, the Christmas lanterns underneath the skyway over pass came
to view and in my glassesless sight they looked like bright splotches of color
that changed periodically. The back of Cash and Carry appeared, the delivery
gate closed out with banners, Welga Kami
emblazoned on it.
Filmore
was reached and mama stirred. I told her to wake up because we were in Filmore
already. Just outside, Feelmore
blinked on and off at the bar and karaoke that dominated majority of the
street. To the side, Cash and Carry looked dreary in the darkness and the Welga Kami banners.
I
told mama that we were past AXL and I told her that she really needed to wake
up. Behind us, dad was telling my sister the exact same thing. Except she was more stubborn than mama.
Clambering
back down the Van, I said a dry thank you to my lola’s
paramour and a hug and kiss for my lola. Some other time, I promised her, we
will all go out. We as a family, I pointedly said, the family, only us. I
ignored her Paramour. As far as I am concerned, he was only the driver anyway.
There’s
always something you can blame it on anyway.
Right
now, in front of the computer, with the Midi of “Endless Rain” and “Crucify My
Love” playing in the background, I hear my dad call me down to sleep for the 2nd
time. It is
But
even if I tell this reason to my mom, I still can’t justify why I must stay
this long on the computer.
Then
again, the computer room is drenched in pitch-black darkness save for the halo
of light that the monitor sheds. The darkness is something I am happy to be
drowned in. Darkness, Drunkeness and Glassesless sight.
In darkness you cannot lose anything because it never had anything. In
drunkenness, you can be excused from the rest of humanity because of alcohol.
In glassesless sight you can choose not to see the ugliness and still not wear
rose-colored glasses.
The
half-moon had disappeared sometime ago and I feel sorry because of that. If it
were here, it would see me, the MoonWatcher, not drunk, barely in darkness. My
glasses lay unused beside the keyboard. My head is starting to hurt but I
refuse to put them on for now.
For now.
At
92% I am only counting down what is left to download for “Forever Love”.
Hopefully, I can download it before dad calls me down a third time. Hopefully I
can wake up tomorrow and call my classmates and tell them that the meeting is
off.
I’m
simply too smashed.
The End