The Inebriated Soul

The Inebriated Soul:


The three girls laughed in hysteria in the small Mini-Cooper zooming down the dusty Nevada road. They looked like they could be sisters, all smiling and pretty. There were a few idiosyncrasies between them, however, like their laughs: Gillian, the driver, had a steady, nervous laugh as she kept most of her attention on the road; Amy, the distraction in the passenger-seat, had a series of quick chuckles in succession that sounded like a broken record; and Amy was the worst, with the laughing that quickly evolved into a sort of nasal grunt—the kind of laugh that makes you cover your face in embarrassment to be seen in the presence of it. In this particular instance, however, the idiosyncrasies were muffled in the outrageously loud music which drifted out over the barren desert.

“I just told him to fucking deal with it; this is something we’ve been planning for awhile.” Cara said as she gulped down the beer, her premature alcoholism increasing tenfold since the start of the trip.
“But just think about how amazing it’s going to be.”

Amy lay idly across the backseat, legs resting against the window. “It’s going to be one hell of a trip.”

“I just wish we were a little older.” Cara continued as if she was never interrupted. “We’d be able to do so much more.”

They conversed, but Gillian’s thoughts were preoccupied. She was mindful of the conversation, and even interjected on every occasion, but the majority of her thoughts were gone from that car, still dwelling in the severed relationship with Ben back home. She was done with it, the fatuity of love. It was just another deceptive hook society used for profit. There was no such thing as love, because nothing lasts forever.

These thoughts consumed her interests, leaving it the sole thing she could think about as they slowly began to see cars and houses in the steadily setting sunlight. Soon enough, the landscape opened up to the epitome of civilization: Las Vegas towered, even in the distance, with an array of lighted towers in the midst of a city.

“There is is.” Gillian said simply, silencing the bothersome friends as they looked at it in awe.

“Hell yeah.” Cara sang before tipping back the beer.

The car slowed down, pulling off to the side of the road, the bright headlights just an addition to the endless row of lights down the street.

“Amy, you drive.” Gillian said, already opening the door.

“Why?” She asked in that bitchy tone that always preceded an argument.

“Because I’ve driven the entire goddamn time, and I’m getting drunk.” She walked around to the back, grinning at the second ‘Hell yeah!’ from Cara. She collapsed into the backseat, slipping her arm into the back behind her chair. Her fingers brushed several bottles, wrapping around the smallest, the bottle of vodka. “Got any Coke, Cara?”

“I thought you were getting drunk.”

“Cocaine, you dumbass.” She let the two get over their surprise, taking a generous gulp of the vodka. The stench almost immediately made her gag, but she got it down, and felt it down there for awhile, traces of the warmth burning all the way down her chest.

Amy was unsettled, and understandably so; Cara was always the one to cross the line, but they were relatively good. Gillian had just crossed it, leaving Amy alone.

Gillian grinned despite, the suspense of the drug overwhelming her as Cara set up lines. Gillian took several lines: the first time, an immediate irritation was present in the back of her throat, making her recoil instinctively, but after awhile it had an anesthetic effect. Cara wasn’t even thinking about it, line after line.

She didn’t even remember putting the drink down. Of course, Cara wasn’t watching, didn’t know how much Gillian had done—she didn’t care about that kind of shit. Cara had weaved a webbed trap ever since they met; she always seemed the most amused, or with the most enjoyment. Yet Amy saw through the web and could see the discontent lying underneath. Gillian couldn’t see through it; she was above it all, held together by Ben, her fetter to morals. But Ben left her, and she fell right in.

She would have thought of Ben, and tried, but the drug kept her mind at bay. Her attention wavered, the semi-somnambulation acting as a barrier from undesirable thoughts. She would have normally shrank from the crippling ability it had on her mind, but all of this was shipwrecked in her own sea of inebriated desires. They laughed and sang, the passing lights overhead giving a movie-like ambience. Amy wasn’t so nervous now either, contributing most to the conversations. She never dwelled on things.

After a time, the excitement died down and Gillian realized how tired she was. Her face pressed against the door as she gazed out at the strangers unresponsively through the open window. Her mind was serene, extinguished from everything, both good and bad.

Scantily clad women crossed the street in front of them, an invitation to sex plastered with the excessive makeup that masked their true face.

Suddenly, Gillian relapsed into an icy laughter that echoed across the street to the whores. The cackle was distinctive, belittling as she stared at them with clairvoyant eyes. The light turned green; the car turned out of view of them as Gillian slouched in her seat. It was in that moment of loneliness that she finally possessed an emotion she knew existed in others. She saw through Cara’s intricate web. She saw it in the whores’ eyes, in their clothes. She even saw it in the glow of Las Vegas. The whole world reflected discontent. She felt it like a knife in her chest. The pain was terrible, the only emotion she had experienced for awhile. If she were to only have this, better to not have emotions at all.

“More lines?” Gillian asked from the backseat. Cara turned around, her smile betraying her eyes. Gillian couldn’t see Amy’s eyes; she was driving.