Intoxicated by Kateryna Hrynchan

“The best display of love is

enduring the smell of vomit from your partner's mouth during a kiss”.

That sentence has been replaying in Andrii’s head for a few hours now. He can’t shake it off for some reason. Even a grand outdoor party, with dozens of acquaintances and strangers roaming around, is not enough to soothe his anxious mind.

Maybe more whiskey will do the trick.

Wherever he looks, he sees drunk people. It seems like most of them have already given up on limiting themselves. A girl from his maths class lies on a pile of pizza boxes, not able to utter a single coherent word. Five intoxicated guys are doing pushups near the pool, while the sixth one struggles to get out of the water. Somewhere in the distance, Andrii can hear deafening calls for more booze.

The scene almost seems apocalyptic to him. Well, if the world is really ending, then it should hurry. He is tired of seeing the same sight over and over again.

A tipsy guy who resembles a zombie more than a human sits next to him on a bench. He burps loudly, not paying attention to the person beside him. Then, in just a second, he goes out like a light.

“Gross,” Andrii thinks to himself. This guy gives off a sour stench of alcohol mixed with vomit. Andrii tries to ignore it and keep drinking his whiskey, but it is impossible. The odour is too overpowering to handle.

Just as Andrii is about to move to another bench (preferably the one without the drunkards on it), something tingles in his brain. He freezes.

This smell.

It is very, extremely familiar. In the worst way possible, no less.

If Andrii is not mistaken, this stranger smells like rum. Rum with coke, to be more specific.

Rum.

Coke.

Vomit.

Andrii can’t take it anymore. The memories come flooding back to him.

-

They lie together in a tight embrace, on a worn, filthy mattress. The entire room is dark since the heavy curtains are blocking all the sunlight. Every single thing around Andrii (including the boy next to him) reeks of rum, coke, and puke. This moment feels both mesmerizing and grotesque.

Maybe the ugliness of it is what ultimately makes it beautiful. Maybe the pain this life has to offer is what makes living worthwhile.

Andrii lets out a quiet sigh. The hickeys on his bare neck hurt even more than the cigarette burns on his forearm.

-

In this dark room, they spent their days and nights. They woke up together, drank together, had sex together. Then the same thing again, and again, and again. In this life, Andrii lost track of time completely. Nothing was real for him anymore, except Sasha and rum.

Yes, it was him. He was the person who had offered him a bottle for the first time. “A pleasant way to start an even more pleasant evening,” he said then. In hindsight, it was the moment when Andrii’s life went downhill.

Not that he was against it. Before Sasha came into his life with a shiny bottle of intoxicating liquid in hand, everything had been so dull. Uninteresting people, boring university courses, tedious routine. Andrii was asking for it. He was asking for someone interesting.

Someone who could ruin everything.

In those short periods when they were not drinking, having sex, or sleeping, they had some interesting conversations. They talked about life, philosophy, metaphysics. Criminal law. Medieval execution methods. Sasha was surprisingly knowledgeable for his age. Andrii was never bored by his sometimes disturbing stories.

This seldom happened, though. Most of the time they were busy with other things. Whenever they got sober, they would drink more. Their whole life became one big Groundhog Day, soaked with the disgusting smell of rum with coke.

And just like that, they were slowly destroying each other. Finding other original ways to put marks on their naked bodies. Drinking until they were numb.

Everything from that time felt like a blur. The only thing that Andrii recalls clearly is that handsome devil, his alluring grin, and the feeling of hands scratching his naked back.

-

And then, he wanted out.

Sasha stood before him, face all serious and mature, telling how he couldn’t live like this anymore. How he needed to get his life together and become a normal member of society.

Andrii couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Sasha was the most insane person he had ever met. The things he had done in that dark room were unexplainable by any moral norms.

How in the world could they pretend like none of it had ever happened?

“We are harmful to each other,” this backstabbing bastard said. “You should’ve already realized that. It was never meant to last forever”.

No….

Andrii can’t do this. He had revelled in their intoxicated world, full of alcohol and vomit. He had learned to appreciate its vulgarity and impurity. “Normal” just ceased to exist for him.

“This is goodbye. Don’t ever try to get in touch with me again,” Sasha added, his facial expression emotionless.

“Wait!” Andrii shouts. “I can change too! We can get better together!” He had no idea how, but that didn’t matter then. He was ready to do anything to keep Sasha.

After a moment, the boy at the door looked at Andrii condescendingly. In his eyes, there was a devious spark of messed-up amusement.

“No,” he replied with a Stoic tone. “No, you cannot. Not after what I did to you”.

After he had uttered these final words, he closed the door behind him with a loud thud.

Andrii just stood there, flabbergasted. After Sasha had left, what was even left of him? He wasn’t his own person anymore. All the skills he had possessed before were long lost by then.

That devil was gone forever. That liar, whose next task would probably be finding a new person to spoil. The very person who had ruined him,

the very person Andrii could not function without.

In life in the dark flat, there were two things: Sasha and alcohol. Now that he was gone, there was only one other option left for Andrii.

-

“The best display of love is enduring the smell of vomit from your partner's mouth during a kiss,” Sasha’s sweet voice keeps replaying in his memory.

On the bench, reeking of rum and vomit, Andrii starts weeping like a small child. Certainly, the bottle in his hand is soon going to be empty.