Of Course It Can Get Worse

I was shaking. I'm not often mad but when I do get that upset it is an impressive thing. Adrenaline was coursing through me and I had to fight to calm myself. Our...discussion was apparently loud enough to be heard over the music and other conversation in the house as I was suddenly no longer alone. As the red mist faded from my eyes, the first thing I noticed seeing again was Scott and Natalie. “Sorry about that.” I fought out a smile. “I think I ruined your party. I'll go in a moment once I calm down a little more.”

“Go?” Scott questioned. “Dude, you just got here. What the hell happened?” I got as far as “Karen and I...” in my explanation before Scott interjected. “Ah geez. I knew we shouldn'ta invited her along. If we hadn't, she'da found out about the party and complained so there was no way to win. She still got a bug up her butt?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well, she's got a lot of room in that fat tail of hers for a whole hive a'something. She still giving you a hard time about Heather?”

I hunched over the table as the adrenaline faded and the weariness followed. Natalie brought me another beer and it became my new focal point. “Oh yeah.”

“That was years ago. Everyone else got over it, well, almost everyone else anyway, why can't she? Shoulda asked you before; you know where Heather is now? Tried to get ahold of her for this thing but the letter I sent to her address got returned.”

“She's dead.”

A few choice words slid from Scott in shock. “Really?” I confirmed that I was being serious. Scott swore a bit more. “How did we not find out before?”

“They were living in another state at the time. I didn't find out until well after the fact. The circumstances surrounding it were odd. All sorts of reasons.”

“Odd?” Scott repeated. “She sick or something?”

I considered that for a moment. “That too, yeah.”

“Well if that's the case, we should salute proper.” He got up to collect a bottle of whiskey and a couple of shot glasses. Once filled, he raised his glass. “To better times.”

I followed suit, adding “To absent friends.” And we drank.


For awhile, the passage of time quickly blurred, we sat there and talked. Others joined us at the table for a time, sharing in the stories, before leaving us again. Scott and I sat there, chatting, reminiscing, laughing, and drinking a bit. While the party had started roughly for me, the bulk of it was a very enjoyable experience.

There's something very sad about friends that don't see each other often separately. Everyone promises to stay in touch more or agrees to 'do this again real soon' and everyone means it but knows that day-to-day busy will prevent it from happening any more than it already has in the past. We are friends and still love each other, well most of us anyway, but our lives are just far enough apart now that we don't get to see each other regularly. There were hugs, there were handshakes, there were some kisses, and then there was leaving.

By the time I got back to my car it was past one in the morning. I was tired. It was cold but the rain had ceased. I'd stopped drinking some time ago so the effect of the alcohol had long since faded. I pulled away from the house and drove down the street. At the first stop sign I reached, everything went black.

Went I woke, I was still tired. My mouth tasted funny but familiar. I'd been gassed. I was held in place in my chair by metal clamps around my wrists and ankles. Having taking stock of my situation I was forced to wonder which villain had hosted the garage sale. It was a very 60s chair. Nice on the nostalgia but otherwise very dated. Who would do this to me?

“Ah! The reunion is not over for this evening!”

I'd missed the obvious. Apart from Heather, who as noted had good reason to not show, there was but one friend that hadn't appeared: my self proclaimed arch-enemy. “Hi Eric.”