Walking into a restaurant with a 30% discount on alcohol is the first step on a dark path toward tequila.
“Are you sure?” G asks, pouring the seventh round of shots.
“Who you asking? Me or you?” I boast, trying to figure out the mystery of picking up a slice of lime. G laughs. I get the lime between thumb and pointer. I fill with pride. I take the shot. I blink.
My eyes do a split. When they come back together, my left contact is knocked out of place.
“Shit,”
M sits across from me.
“What?”
“My contact. Does anyone here wear glasses?”
I look around. A girl raises her hand.
“What is your prescription?” I ask, tugging the lens from my eye and accidentally dropping it into the bowl of salt.
She pulls out her glasses. She puts them on.
“Oh, I don’t have a prescription. I just think they look cute.”
I glare at her. My other contact, feeling lonely, begins to itch. I slip it out and flick it somewhere.
I look around.
The world has become food coloring droplets on a paper towel; the consistency of a drowning man’s last thoughts.
I look across at the blob of condensed air that is M.
“It’s a stylistic choice,” he defends the girl.
“Oh, bullshit, it’s mocking the handicapped, next thing you know, crutches will be cool.”
I stare up at the light. It is a pool, shimmering.
“It’s not like that,” M says. I can feel his eyes rolling around his tone.
I grunt. “You’re right, it’s more like black-face.”
M thinks about it. My fingers stumble around the table in search of a glass of water.
“Yeah, except you weren’t enslaved,” M reminds me.
“No,” I shrug, taking a drink of what turns out to be a Vodka Tonic, “just blind.”
I squint at M. It helps. He is giving it some serious thought.
“No,” he decides, “slavery is definitely worse.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, “yeah.”
G’s hand appears out of nowhere. An eighth shot of Tequila.
I can smell it.
*
Thanks for reading. For more of our work, check us out at Flash-365.com