NATASHA DENNERSTEIN

Dark Spirits

Midnight. You are standing in a pool of black water that glimmers like onyx under the street lights and the rain is bucketing down. All you've had to eat today is a nasty piece of wedding cake, force-fed to you by your ex-wife to celebrate the wedding of your daughter to a thug you have never liked. You chew on half a toothpick which you snatched off the bar before you staggered out of your own daughter's wedding. That was before you slapped the mother of the groom on the arse. That was before you tried to unfold the allegedly folding bicycle you bought from The Warehouse – made in China, of course. That was before you dumped the wretched piece of crap in the gutter where it belonged. And here you stand, in the black water, on the night from hell, hoping that lightning will strike you dead before tomorrow's hangover kills you. And you vow to never touch bourbon again. And then the rain turns to hail and the hailstones are the size of seed-pearls and they hurt. You welcome the pain and tilt your face towards it.

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