Christmas Drunkard

By Chaitrali Chaudhari

Amanda switched off the festive Christmas lights as I cleaned up the vodka glasses in the wash.

"Vin, clear the tables and close up," Amanda hollered at me after finishing her list of things, already halfway through the door. I flipped her off with my finger and she chuckled as she left.

Amanda's presence in my life was aleatory. If her father hadn't been dismissive towards her, she would have been rich enough to never step a foot in my dingy bar.

Being a student and penniless made her need a job to cope up with today's living expenses. She was decent and managed the accounts well.

It was my wife's job before she passed away four years back. Exactly four years back from today.

Cold shivers of solitude sprinted down my spine. The hush inside the room didn't help any.

I sighed and glanced at the assortment of alcohol that lay shelved according to brands. I took out the bottle of Bacardi 151 that we shelved at the top, outside of the anyone's eyes unless they specifically asked for it.

My wife's mahogany hair and sky-like blue eyes were plastered in my mind like a statue itself. The silky stretch of her alabaster skin was the envy of many and when she stood behind the bar counter, we made money in the range of millions.

I rested my butt onto the plastic barstool, the bottle in one hand and a shot glass in the other. I poured myself a glass of the drink and looked at it in speculation. Without the dilution of additional liquids, the alcohol content in my hand was as high as 75.5% ABV.

It took three shots of the drink and cleared tables to make the room around me sway.

I rested back against the DJ stand to gain some balance. No wonder my wife made fun of me for being a lightweight.

I was sweating profusely. Why hadn't I noticed this before?

The room started swinging, back and forth. A bright light filled the darkness all around me and the room was now quaking harsher and harsher. Something hit my head and one word escaped my mouth, "Ow."

I felt the pain throughout my body, as if I'd been banged up by a freight train. "Ugh," I groaned and convulsed, trying to contort in a child's pose to alievate the pain. My head was undeniably banging.

"Oh dear," a female voice chimed from the array of voices that suddenly came into focus.

There were too many people around me.

The voice bellowed again, "He's awake Judith!"

"Don't move your wrist, son," the woman who was speaking placed a palm over my wrist to restrain it. "The needle could puncture your vein," her knowledge proclaimed.

Needle? IVs didn't have needles these days.

I cracked my eyes open to the bright light aimed at my eyes from the open roof. My parched throat lay forgotten upon the sight around me.

People lay ill and disfigured on the array of beds around me. A few people were wretching out their food while others sat with blank looks on their faces. Men and women dressed in white rushed around, running from one patient to another.

I froze upon the sight. "Where am I," I croaked out the question in a sad rasp.

"No worries, dear. You are in the care of Doctor Judith," coo-ed a grey-haired woman. She sat on a stool between my bed and an old man's. She placed a hand on my forehead, maybe to check for any temperature.

"I just need an Advil. I can pull through this," I sighed as I thought about my drinking earlier.

"What's an Advil," asked a delicate chime.

Immediately, I turned to look for the source. She had chocolate eyes and her dark hair pulled back in a bun. She adorned the same white coat many wore here on top of a blouse and a brown plaid skirt.

I narrowed my eyes at her question, she was dressed like a doctor.

"Oh Judith," the old lady exclaimed, "I must go to the outhouse at once. Take care of these men, would you?"

Outhouse? The woman left immediately after Judith's nod.

"You mustn't drink so much, sir. We had to pump your stomach free of all the brew you had consumed," Judith scolded as she wrote something down on the clipboard she carried.

I raised my eyebrow at her formal talk, confused beyond words.

I glanced at the glass she was filling with water and asked, "What happened here?"

"Obviously, you do not read newspapers," Judith rolled her eyes as I took the glass from her, "It's the influenza, it's real. They aren't lying in the newspapers."

I gulped down the water. I'd studied history in sixth grade, this wasn't real. I was in a mad house. I pointed to the IV, "I want to get out of here, Judith," I begged.

"Who does not," she muttered under her breath, "Pathetic wars. Making me work on the Christmas eve."

She brusquely opened a drawer door and pulled out an envelope. She handed it to me, turned around and left towards another patient.

I glanced at the envelope addressed to me and then at it's open seal. Curiosity pricked me and my heart started beating faster. The handwriting on the envelope was familiar.

I pulled out the letter with just one hand. The other was preoccupied being immobilised due to the needle burrowed in my skin. It was starting to throb there.

25th December, 1915.

Dear Vincent,

I died four years ago and you are four years too late to stop mourning me. I know my death came as a bit of a shock to you and many others.

I can't begin to express how sorry I'm feeling for not telling you about my cancer earlier. But that would have prevented me from living the wholesome life that you showed me. And I know that may seem slightly selfish but I didn't want to see any days where I was just a lifeless replica of myself.

I loved you so much for seeing me as a woman that I couldn't become without you. But I need you to love me a little more and finish mourning me. I need you to stop living like a skeleton and see the world once more.

It was your way of bringing the dead colours back to life and rejuvenating a dull air with a new fragrance. I want you to find that old self back. Every second that you spend in my memories, I loose that second because I could have looked down at how you are still coloring the world.

Cherish the weather, dissolve into the season and let that tear fall. Because until that tear remains locked in a box of soundless cries and humourless chuckles, I'll be locked up in memories I can't remake.

Forevermore a memory,

Emily.

My voice had suffocated into silence but the tears that I'd hid from the world blurred my vision as one slipped the corner of my eye to land upon Emily's name. A tear I'd kept inside me for four estranged years.

I closed my eyes. My body no longer hurt because of the throb in my heart. It was a throb so harsh, my death in that moment wouldn't be painful. I put my face in my palms and dry heaves choked me as the letter lay like a heavy weight in my laps.

It felt like I'd been crying for hours.

"Hey, man," Judith voiced, worried. She put a hand on my shoulder. "I don't know what happened to you. But life is harsh sometimes and if you learn to not take the unfairness of life to your heart, you'll live a real happy life dude," she whispered. More tears slipped down my face.

I peeked up at the four white walls surrounding me once I'd cried all my tears out. Judith still stood beside me with a hand on my shoulder and a small comforting smile on her face.

I glanced at the change of surroundings, the walls were decorated with frames of HD photographs. The modern equipments resided beside the comfortable bed I was seated on. Judith was still dressed in her first war attire.

I returned her comforting smile and shifted to a more respectable posture. "Thanks," I told her. She let go off my shoulder and I missed her hand there.

Somehow, I'd given Emily her freedom in a time of death and ailment. The irony. I toyed with the corners of the letter.

"Knock knock," Amanda greeted from the doorway, a small decorated Christmas tree in her hands, "You'd be the only one to get admitted on the Christmas day," she teased, "Merry Christmas, drunkard."

By Chaitrali Chaudhari