• You know your night was long when you went to 10 bars but can't remember half of it
Image: PIXABAY
Diary,
I had plans for the new year. Good, wholesome plans. I wanted to better myself this year, live my life to the fullest. I even had a few New Year resolutions. I had resolved to embrace the chaos and aspire to make my bed at least once a month. To practise the fine art of remembering where I left my keys at least twice a week. And to attempt to become fluent in the complex science of emojis to communicate complex emotions more effectively.
But I guess karma had different plans for me. Evil plans, as it turned out, and the exceptionally pretty vessel through which those plans were delivered came by the name Akinyi. If you don’t know, the name Akinyi means born in the morning. That means the unborn girl spent the entire night working out how to escape her mother’s womb. You see where I’m going? Akinyis never sleep.
For that reason alone, she was the perfect date for New Year’s Eve. Only one problem, the Akinyi I got had more energy than the Energizer bunny. We must have hopped through 10 or more bars. I remember the first four, since I almost got into a fight in the second one. Akinyi dared me to a drinking contest in the third — tequila, no less, the worst alcohol in the history of the universe. We split up in the fourth bar because Akinyi caught me almost about to kiss another girl near the loos. We made up and made out after I explained I was doctor and the poor girl had something down her throat.
The rest is a blur.
That is, until I wake up in the gutter this morning. And I don’t mean metaphorically. I’m talking about waking up outside a bar, halfway inside a trench, the lower half of my body soaked in dirty (probably sewer) water, and my head resting on a dirty, bloated pillow. And who wakes me up? Who else but Akinyi, bearing two cups of steaming coffees. I notice she, too, is wet from the knees down.
“A peace offering.” She hands me a cup and plops down next to me. “Apparently, we got robbed sometime during the night and couldn’t pay for our drinks or get a room. And oh, we were too drunk to con an Uber into taking us home. The bouncer says he was kind enough not to leave us all the way on the street.” She touches her cup to mine. “Happy New Year, Moses.”
“Happy New Year,” I say, raising my cup. “And by the way, my name is Thomas.”