IF GOD MADE LITTLE DEMONS

First we start two years ago.

I told my girlfriend, pink and blonde hair like strawberry ice cream melted and poured over hay, that I wouldn't drink anymore. Beer bottles on the floor, just like every weekend, and her tears gone but her cheeks still smelled like mascara and pity and all of the stuff inside her that didn't like me. Didn't like when I drank. It was wine, liquor, everything I could swallow, suck down alone, me and my liquid potions, turning my insides all light and then wet sludge dark.

I threw a bottle at her. I lost control. And I remembered nothing. Not exactly nothing, sort of like having the preview in my mind but not the entire movie, the chorus in my head and not the whole song. Pissed the bed and here I was again sick stuck to the bed like a worm on the sidewalk after the rain. Couldn't really talk or move. Apologized. Sorry. Sorry.

Said it would never happen again before the last time, the time before. And there she was, my girlfriend, running her fingers through my dirty hair.

She was gone. It was only a matter of time.

Now we flash to a year ago.

The first AA meeting I went to was strange. All older men with so many little demons in them. Sat around in a circle and talked without filters, like Chesterfields all smoky and full of tar and when it was all over my lungs hurt. Nobody looked me in the eye.

Where was your bottom? His bottom was jail, his getting kicked out by his wife, his when he woke up in a wrecked car in a field. How'd that car get wrecked? Who knew. One of the mysteries of life. Wondered if my bottom was that deep. The deeper the bottom, the scarier it was.

I wondered how deep I was buried and I looked up. Above me, floating clouds or layers of cake, it was there. Everyone who was gone. The times I couldn't remember. The times I'd cry and cut myself and heal in weird ways that hurt.

15 years. And when I said "my name is Will and I'm an alcoholic," I knew I didn't

mean it.

And finally there's Saturday...

I lost you on Saturday. Didn't know it would happen. Oh, hell, sure I did. It always happens. Thought this time I could live through it, the fog, the anger. The first few bottles of wine were okay, but opening the liquor and smoking and then the only thing I remember was falling in the backyard and not being able to get up. Trying but my feet were too heavy. Wanted to get up. It ain't as easy as it sounds.

Remember waking. Found a knife on the floor, with throw up and some food I threw.

Called you. You said it wasn't me. It was my demons, you said. Then I apologized and you hung up. Not mad. The end.

Cut myself again. Another bottom. Three dark lines down my upper arm.

Hate myself again. Think of two years ago, and that girl with the pink and blonde hair. With light from behind her, glowing, white, pure. She saw the demons, you saw the demons, I can't see them. I see her, see you. There will never be a real blackout, a moment of permanent loss. No. The men in the circle know that.

We'll all be together, you and I and she, smiling, drink held high, next weekend, alone, together, in this apartment, with wine, maybe tears, and scars, and memories.




Will Spires lives in Charlotte, NC, with his wife and two cats. He has recently had stories appear at MyStrangeStories.com, Yellow Mama, and will have a nasty little thing in the upcoming issue of
Micro 100.