One Minute in the Brain of Someone Sad

Illustrated by Victoria Cheng.

Sixty.

I’m not drunk. They think I am but don’t worry, I’m not. They think I have the lowest alcoholic tolerance known to the entirety of human existence. Of mammalian existence. Of global life existence. But would someone as drunk as they so readily think I am be able to say existence so many times in one thought vomit paragraph? Didn’t think so. Therefore, me no drunk. Not. Drunk. 

Fifty-five.

I’m just wobbling. Again, not because I’m drunk. Wobbling is actually the wrong word. I’m balancing. In an effort to spice up this bar crawl, I’m balancing. Tight rope walking. Parkouring. Role playing some assassins creed like fantasy. On, well, on a bridge. DON’T freak out. Let me explain. It’s a very pretty bridge. Different shades of old golden-beige stone piled together in a very pretty pattern. And I guess I thought it would be a very pretty idea to climb up onto it. So, here I be. I’m on the bridge barrier between bar five and six. Or the bridge parapet, to be pretentiously accurate. I think. 

Fifty. 

That’s why they think I’m drunk. That’s why one of the guys is thrusting his hand out yelling at me to come down. And that’s why I’m wobbling. See, he’s being rather aggressive about it. Eyes all wide and contorted and judgy. If I want to walk along the wrong part of a bridge I’m allowed to. If I want to risk falling into something I can’t see because of course it’s nearly the middle of the night and everything’s ink black, I’m allowed. You’re being distracting. Just go on without me. I don’t care. He’s not looking anyway. 

Forty-Five.

A different he. To be clear. There’s so many he’s here and I’ll be honest I don’t know most of their names. But the only he I want to be watching me play around with adrenaline...isn’t. He isn’t watching. Because he’s on his phone. And I’m just staring. Not in a pathetic attempt to make him look at the big, grandiose daring thing I’m in the process of trying. His stillness and lack of eye contact is helping me keep stable. Plus, I needed to stare at him anyway. It’s weird but I’ve started to forget what he looks like. When he’s not in the line of vision. He’s like a black silhouette in my head these days. This human shaped void my brain pretends doesn’t exist anymore. So really, glaring at him counts as multi-tasking here.

Forty.

Still on the phone. Oh. Right. Okay. Just realised. He’s doing it on purpose. There’s too much noise. People are getting too freaked out. Anyone else would have looked up by now. But he knows. He knows it’s me causing chaos. And he doesn’t want to take the responsibility of it. Plausible deniability. Fine. 

Thirty-five. 

He’s become really good at that lately. Ignoring me just enough that I’m the only one that notices. Actually, more than ignoring. Like on his birthday, in that club with the walls that get wet with peoples sweat. Me and my friend found him. He invited us so we found him. I went to hug him. He let me. Then he grabbed my shoulders quite firm and smiled which I found strange because he hadn’t smiled at me since before.  

Thirty.

I remember he spun me round hard and pushed me. He pushed me into some strangers and spent the rest of the night with my friend. And I drank so much I threw up blood and ended my evening in a hospital waiting room alone for eight hours. In a red tartan skirt and see through top and braids. Opposite a fellow red stained human who tried to convince me Prince Harry was one of the aliens. 

Twenty-Five.

Is that allowed? Can he do that? He can’t do that. Can he actually do that? In the same club a month ago he shoved my hand into his jeans knowing no one would see and now he’s shoving me into other people, or down on beds, with the same mentality. He seems to enjoy it too. He seems to get a real scary kick out of it. Like when little boys microwave barbie’s kind of kick. Like when little future serial killers chop up the neighbour’s puppy kind of kick. 

Twenty.

No. Can’t look at him. I can’t look at him anymore and I’m wobbling properly now because he was the only thing I was focusing on and now the beers bubbled up into my head and I can’t see anything and I feel broken and wrong and horrible and yeah fine, a little drunk. And my visions come back but it’s messy and he’s everywhere. He’s on my bed and over the desk and by the bathroom door and in those first few steps you take when you walk into my room. And he’s in my kitchen and across the courtyard in his kitchen and by the bike racks waiting for his friends while I wait for mine. And I can’t get rid of him. Even if I wanted to I can’t get rid of him because he’s just there infecting everywhere I could possibly try to exist. The whole place.

Fifteen.

And I keep trying to find something in him. On and off messing around for five months and I can’t find it. We’re on a bar crawl together with everyone we live with and it doesn’t make us know each other. I don’t know anyone here. The bad side of the bridge makes more sense than this because at least that’s supposed to look like nothing. He’s not. He’s supposed to be anything else. But no matter what angle or perspective or vantage point I target him at there’s just so much not there it’s terrifying. No empathy. No recognition. No accountability, morality or a single thing in between. It’s just numb. And it makes me numb. It makes my eyes go dead and my face limp like I’m not really alive anymore.

Ten.

Did he come over the day after because he wanted to or was he covering his tracks?

Nine.

Did he say he had fun so I would say I had fun so he wouldn’t get in trouble? So I’d be contradicting myself if I tried to say anything else? So the messages on that phone he loves so much would make him untouchable?

Eight.

Does he remember what he did?

Seven.

Surely no one could have been blackout drunk and still be able to have done what he did. 

Six.

 Which means he knows. And I know he knows. Which is why I haven’t slept. Why that beds become the ultimate insomniac recipe. And why I keep finding new extremes to attempt to force some feelings out of him. Some reaction. Which of course never works. And never will work.

Five.

Back when I used to sleep I would fly in my dreams and it would be like swimming. The water on the bad side of the bridge is the only thing I can look at other than him. And it looks cold but that doesn’t mean bad. It looks better than the alternative. Cold could be better than nothing. It could be like my dreams. And I did always promise if I did it would be something like this.

Four.

And I am very ready to do something stupid. 

Three.

I could follow through with his famous little phrase.

Two.

Just let it happen.

One.