Dating : The Walk Back

Staggered walking makes his knees weak. He’s going to regret it all tomorrow morning. All of God’s finest liquor sloshes around in his gut, swaying him this way and that like a galleon. The city is beautiful at night. Spires and towers and arches and pillars, all salute him as he passes them by. Or maybe he salutes them. In the aftermath of three pints of beer and half a bottle of vodka, his thoughts linger over whether it would have been wiser to be dropped back. They were all as hammered as him, though. They would’ve been stumbling down stairs and twirling around lampposts, just as he had been doing minutes ago.

Harry Potter. That’s what the buildings remind him of. Gothic or Baroque or whatever architecture it is, it’s old. And dark. Thank God he is only drunk, so it all seems funny to him. He knows a guy who went out for a stroll on acid and fainted as church towers turned into dragons before him. The faded yellow of the street lamps sear his eyes. He naturally drifts into the dark — the alleyways and unlit roads. It really is empty. Past the hour when the drunks and junkies are out for their midnight walks. Nothing moves. In fact, he stumbles to a stop just to check. He likes rolling his head around when he’s standing still, so that everything swirls. It makes him giggle.

Everything begins to become lighter around him, and he realises there is a car behind him. He checks to see if he’s on the pavement. Yes, he is. No cause for concern. He begins to hum a familiar tune, thinking that inebriation makes him a better singer. The car slows down. So does he. The car really slows down.

He doesn’t look back, but he knows somebody is watching him. The other day, he was reading about crime stats in this city, which were so similar to the ones back home. Even if he was from the third world. No, no — the global south, he almost laughs out loud. But the lights are still on, and somehow, they’re brighter.

Brown kid walking back home. It’s an unpleasant thought. He feels himself sobering up. There’s a restlessness in his ankles, a rock in his stomach. He hums the tune a little louder and straightens up his posture, just in case he wasn’t walking straight before. His back is still turned towards the car. The city is still beautiful at night.

In the corner of his eye, he sees a tunnel that slices through the side of an old brick building with sharp gables. He makes a sharp turn and the tunnel plunges him in darkness just as the car glides by him soundlessly. Probably nothing. He loves these dark tunnels that dot the city, which sheltered smugglers and pickpockets two hundred years ago. One abreast, that’s how wide it is. Halfway through, he stops and looks back the way he came. A sliver of light escapes from a nearby street lamp. He continues walking. Perhaps this is what women feel like all the time. He trips his way out of the tunnel and onto another open street. I am a woman, he chuckles to himself.