#1

The night started with banter and ended with a knock on the door. What happened in between made it a truly exceptional Tuesday night. Drinks, laughter, frustration, a near-death experience, the police, a matching set of scars. Looking back I divide the night into two phases. Drinks and Aftermath. Most nights out in Taipei will consist of either drinksandaftermath, drinksandsex, or drinksandfood. The suffix will vary, but the prefix will always remain the same. No matter what you will have fallout, but that is not a phase of the night, it is a phase of the morning. Fallout usually consists of, but is not limited to; a hangover that makes you feel like a fuckwit, a naked scramble, unbridled regret, unbridled jubilation, a jail cell, and the most common, a tragic loss of funds. Let us start with phase one, drinks.

I, Big Cat, met up with Polar Bear at 11PM outside one of Taipei’s swanky speakeasy’s and waited for our best friends at the time. They were very late. Honey Badger and Hedgehog were always late, Polar Bear and I equated this habit it them being female. In truth they were curious of the world around them and like to wander within it while drinking red wine. No hard feelings.

Close to 1AM they arrive and Polar Bear and I were a couple of drinks deep. Hedgehog bought a Polaroid camera. After a round of hugs pictures were taken and gin and tonics were ordered. With every Polaroid and drink we inched closer and closer to the deep end. In walked Asian Pharell. He looked nothing like Pharell, but he did have that Mountie hat that singer had made popular. We were drunk enough, so we named him Asain Pharell and us drunks treated him like royalty.

Soon after Honey Badger ghosted. She felt too much, she drank too much, so she left. Hedgehog went to search for her and I told Polar Bear of my dreams of late. I was convinced there was a ghost in my apartment. A ghost that liked to slowly pull my bedsheets off of me while I remained still due to sleep paralysis. Polar Bear was a superstitious fellow and told me to move out. Hedgehog came back and wanted to perform a seance after I told her about my dreams. She offered to do it tonight but thought twice. Hedgehog could not find Honey Badger and there would be no way to do it without her present. It would be to good of a show.

We paid our tab, which was bloated and unsettling but quickly forgotten, then found a cab to take us back to the apartment Honey Badger and Hedgehog shared. Location, Location, Location. It was in the center of the city and surrounded by everything that was Taipei. We were stumbling up the stairs to the apartment when Hedgehog shrieked. She did not have her keys. Okay. Easy to fix. Hedgehog is home sleeping, we knock on the door and she will let us in, for sure.

“No.” Hedgehog said. “You don’t understand, she is drunk, she will not get up,” a look of pure dread was over her face, “She sleeps like the dead.” With those words began the second phase of the evening. Aftermath.

#DenRoux #1