LAGER LAGER LAGER SHOT LAGER SHOT LOSE TRACK OF LAGERS BUT THERE’S TWO LAGERS IN FRONT OF YOU AND YOU’RE QUITE DAZED AND DON’T REALLY KNOW WHAT THE SCORE IS, SHOT TO PERK YOU UP, LAGER LAGER SHOT

Whu—? It’s uh. Uh. Oh, you did that thing you sometimes do on a heavy sesh, where you just sort of droop into a state that is not necessarily a nap but it definitely feels like you’ve been staring into space silently for about 20 minutes now, which is just as refreshing as being asleep really, and someone has bought you a vodka-Red Bull to perk you up a bit, and OK ha ha woo alright, here we go here we go here we go! Here we go here we go here we go–oo! What do you mean we lo—?

Whu— OK cool, don’t exactly remember the segue that brought you here (was… did you try to get in a taxi and they… started yelling at y– hold on, do you have a black eye?), and the night is closing in and now there is that electric charge in the air that says a single word, a single perfect syllable ushered down from the heavens and said with a heavy drum beat of dread: town.

You are going Town now, Full Town. You stop off in a pub that absolutely reeks of beer and piss, and drink a full pint, standing up, glued to the sticky floor, bathed in the neon light; now you’re in another pub, three doors down, full with the energy of the night until a bouncer makes a Real Fucking Show of searching your coat pockets before you go in there, which takes your buzz away quite drastically, but then you have a shot of Patrón (horrible!) and get on it again; you briefly come to eating a whole KFC bargain bucket to yourself while the sun still shines outside; back into a pub that seems to be setting up a sort of impromptu karaoke; lads keep putting you in drunken hugs that turn into headlocks that turn back into hugs; someone is fully about to fight you but then says, “Nah, you’re alright,” and pats you really hard on the side of the head; you, dizzy now, fluorescent under the light of the pub cubicle ceiling, doing a greasy little line of pub coke with the exact same bloke who was about to deck you ten minutes ago; you are drinking something indistinct with a straw; you are the only person dancing to this song in the entire bar, one arm arching behind you and up, up into the air; you are waving a £20 note deep over the bar at the person serving behind it, but they keep saying, blurry now, “You’ve paid, you’ve paid, you’ve already paid”; you have a little sit and a stare into space and only realise after about ten straight minutes that you are right on the edge of a table where a family is trying to eat; you are out in the smoking area an inch into a cigarette before you realise you… don’t… even… smoke?; you check your phone to see if it’s an acceptable time to go home yet and the screen is: i. fundamentally cracked where it wasn’t before this day started, and ii. starkly telling you that it’s not even 8PM—