Elegantly Wasted

The liquid swirled underneath my tongue and ignited a blaze of unpalatable sensations.

"This is NOT ginger ale!" I managed to sputter through the bitter burn.

It was assumed that everyone in attendance was to revel in the free flow of Hennessey. Amidst the haze of smoke and inarticulate banter, I stooped over and gasped for air, one hand keeping a slippery grip on the icy rim of the bar.

"I am SOOO giving you the keys!" Mark said uproariously with a slap to my thigh.

"Erm, yeah, you can say that again..."

I had never seen Mark so jovial. He was downing one drink after another, getting more giggly with each gulp. I sat placidly on my stool. It was a long day and all I was thinking about was how great it would be to rest my head on a pillow.

"You know, daaah-ling, when I get high, I start speaking with this British accent, dyenowo'imean?"

I laughed nervously. I had never driven from the middle of town right back home, let alone using someone else's car. To top it all off, I currently possessed the alertness of a pothead. I turned to Mark's friend.

"Neesh, who is better off behind the wheel: a drunkard or a narcoleptic?"

"The latter. Definitely the latter."

I walked through the carpark half an hour later with a man staggering to keep up with the arm that he wrapped around mine. While he made his way to the front passenger door, I took out the keys he gave me and clambered into the driver's seat.

I sat goggle-eyed at the dashboard. I cranked the engine, a commendable start.

"Okay, shouldn't be too hard..." I muttered to myself.

I tapped the accelerator and felt the car inch out of its parking spot. By the time I was about to drive out onto the main road, I was beaming with pride. I pompously flicked the right stick to signal my right turning. A pair of robotic arms attacked the windscreen instead.

"Godaamn you, foreign cars!"

Kuala Lumpur looked like an entirely different city behind the wheel. It was as though street signs had conveniently decided to tuck themselves behind the local roadside foliage.

"Mark, from here, do I go left or right?"

Mark, head hanging over the seat and now emenating an alarming amount of warmth, replied with a slow blink.

With our fate in the Lord's hands, I managed to get to my house without any detours. I slowed down near my house, wondering where to park, when Mark let out a strange demonic noise.

"BLEAGH!"

It sounded exactly like how it is spelt.

I looked at Mark. His eyes were closed, his body remained slumped in his chair. I almost dismissed it as a figment of my imagination.

"BLEAGH!"

My face froze. I was terrified. Mortified. Petrified. Stupefied. The dude was going to mess up his own car.

I pulled over a few houses away from mine, got out of the vehicle and swung open the opposite door. I bent over and in a hushed tone, asked him if he wanted to go to the drain. He fluttered his eyes, bleary and unfocused, and nodded.

I dragged him out to a cement slab overlooking the open drain and turned around just in time to not see anything. The noise was disturbing. It could have been enough to make children cry.

After he was done, Mark sunk over the slab and laid his head there. I paced up and down, shaking my wrists and grinding my teeth.

Think, retard. What do you need when you're drunk?

Oh wait, you don't drink.

D'oh.

Putting the remains of my rational thinking on overdrive, I got my water bottle and some tissue out of the car. I placed the bottle by Mark's side and lovingly tucked the tissue into his limp hand.

"Here you go, Mark. Clean yourself up..."

"...Mark?"

So there they were. A guy in a dapper dual-toned maroon top, snoozing peacefully by the drain. A teetotaler in a dainty corset sitting next to him keeping vigil, twiddling her thumbs, trying to get her naive head around the bewildering situation, having a first taste of what it's like to take care of someone after a hard day's night.

It was, dare I say it, a Kodak moment.