My Last Drink

Working at my computer in the middle of the night, that wintry hour happened to be the first day when I started hearing voices: Those that people said never existed. When I switched on the light, when my computer blinked into oblivion…I heard things coming to life. My grandmother said hearing too little was a curse. Had she been alive, I would have told her that hearing more than one ought to could be worse.

- Manokriti Bedi

Obviously, the psychiatrist too said, alcohol had started working its way into my mind. Lack of sleep- culprit number two. “But I don’t feel any more sleepy, doc!” Unarguable. He wouldn’t listen. Time worked out on its own and I started drifting away from the real world… to the unexplored vineyard of my mind- where my ex-lover and I trampled on black grapes in wooden containers and corrupted the workings of my brain. They wouldn’t know how that happens, but the poison seeped through slowly and steadily to take me into a dreamy world where the lines became blurred. Day and night, sleep and walk, darkness and sound… all became a continuum of my existence.

Holding that neat red glass in my hand for the first time was a curious experience. I didn’t know what to do with it- turn it into my mouth, dip my finger and savour it, or just gulp it down. Douse the memories with alcohol. Everybody had clichéd ideas. But my life had also been as common as green peas since the day I was born. So I didn’t mind. Wish it had served the purpose. But rather than forgetting my lover, I started hearing his voice too. Loud and clear. I would talk to him for hours and the telephone bills were always nil. Could it get any better? No complaints! We never even argued anymore!