Jack was drunk when I met him. Extremely drunk. That, in and of itself, was unusual. You see, Jack was young, handsome, and normally intelligent. He had a well-paying job, was in line for promotions and a good career with the Gillins Financial Firm, and was normally pretty levelheaded.

I was walking home from a late movie on a Thursday night; water was sort of dripping from the sky, halfway between mist and rain, when he ran into me and knocked me over into the gutter, him on top of me.
I was pissed of course. Having a drunk fall on you is not a fun experience, and Jack works out regularly and is over 6’7”, so at 5’10” and little to no experience at a gym, I was rather hard pressed to roll him off me. At length however he shifted his weight, however slowly, and I managed to claw my way out from under him. I swore liberally at him as he lay there half off the sidewalk, struggling to stand up, obviously intoxicated off his ass, then I stood up, shook what water I could from my clothing and brooded angrily at the indignity I had just suffered as I resumed my walk home, wet and chilly now.

That he might get up and tackle me had, of course, not occurred to me. I was rather surprised then when he did, and abruptly had another intimate encounter with wet pavement. This time I was really ticked, so I squirmed around until I could get a place to push against his chest and shoved as hard as I could. My efforts were rewarded with a loud “unf” and a complete and total lack of movement on his part. At this point I was mentally weighing whether it would be better to yell for help or simply to stab him repeatedly to relieve my extreme irritation. Eventually the yell for help won out, due to the fact that I had nothing to stab him with and even if I did, I would just be stuck with a big heavy dead person instead of a big heavy living person and other living people ask questions about dead people so that option was out.

So I yelled for help. And yelled. And yelled. Stupid me. It was after midnight and there wasn’t even anyone on the block or if they were they sure didn’t bother to come help me.

So there I was, lying at an uncomfortable angle on the pavement, with this big muscular drunken stranger laying on top of me, apparently asleep, with the rain starting to come down heavier on both of us, in the middle of a small town in the dead of night.

I couldn’t help myself. The sheer stupidity and absurdity of the situation was just too much to take. I’m not sure whether I laughed or cried, because it felt like both, and it drained me until I was letting out strangled noises that were half-chuckle/half-sob and thinking the asshole on top of me was probably going to die of alcohol poisoning just to spite me.
So for what seemed like an awfully long time I just kind of laid there, waiting for the other shoe to drop, because, I was sure now, that after a certain point things only go downhill, and I had decided in my mind that it was long past that point. Eventually I got tired of waiting and turned my attention to the goon on top of me.

He had what I suppose you might classify as “rugged good looks” though I’ve only ever seen that term used in romance novels. He had a strong chin, wide expressive mouth, a classical Roman nose and thick eyebrows the same deep black as his short spiky hair. He was well tanned, probably from a salon or from doing a lot of outside activity. I looked him over, considering the best angle for my next move, and smacked him as hard as I could with an open hand across the right side of his face.

Well that got his attention, if not quite the reaction I was looking for. He just laid there on top of me, looking down at me with confusion in those drunken, sleepy, green eyes. Then he lowered his head and planted his lips firmly on my own.

It took almost a full minute for my brain to register just what the hell was going on. I put my hands on both sides of his face and pushed as hard as I could, forcing his mouth away from me so I could breathe. One drunken green eye looked reproachfully down at me from between my index and ring fingers and I felt a big hand move to cup the side of my face. In order to complete the maneuver however, he had to shift his weight and I scrambled as hard as I could to get out from under him.

Drunk as he was, it wasn’t awfully difficult, and I stood, bent over a few feet away, vomiting into the gutter a little distance from where I had been laying. I could still taste whatever it was he had been drinking and I gagged, my stomach heaving as it fought to empty itself. When I looked up he was still laying there, looking pathetically at me, completely soaked and still quite drunk. I imagine at that point I didn’t look much better.

“Don’ go, Lisa.” he slurred “Don’ go ‘gain. I got money this time. Jus’ say yes an’ I’ll marry you an’ we can be hap, hic, happy this time.”

I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or impressed by the level of drunkenness he had managed to attain. Not only had he mistaken me for a member of the opposite gender, but also one from his past that had apparently rejected a marriage proposal. So I just looked at him for a moment, then turned my back on him and continued walking.

I was stopped in my tracks by the sound of a gun safety clicking off. I turned slowly, expecting at any moment to hear the shot go off. It wasn’t that I was afraid of him shooting me, at least not on purpose, but I didn’t want to be in the way of that barrel when he pulled the trigger.

What happened next was one of the most dramatic moments in my entire life. One of those life-changing experiences that shake up your perception of the world, or in my case awakens it to something more than a cold cursory glance at the other people who share it with you. A life hung in the balance as the scale tipped from one side to the other, and then, with irreversible finality, stopped swinging.

I stood there watching as he put the barrel of the gun against his own forehead, tears streaming from those beautiful emerald eyes. So alive with life I saw now. In that moment I looked into them and realized that behind them, there was a living being, a soul with hopes and aspirations, with desires and needs and real feelings. In that moment the world seemed to shift on its axis and was changed forever.

I walked slowly back to him where he was kneeling, the rain still falling gently. I looked deep into those eyes, and I drew that lovely head down to my shoulder and I hugged him. I heard the gun clatter to the ground, heard his choking sobs as he cried into my shirt and it went off. There was an odd lack of sensation then, as he pulled back from me, green eyes going wide with surprise. I smiled reassuringly at him, smiled into those beautiful green eyes. My world seemed to contract until all I saw was his face. I looked into those eyes once more, reveling in their clarity, in the banishment of the pain that had filled them. I smiled and gently caressed his face. In that moment I fell in love with the rest of the world. Then I died.

Jack knelt, holding the motionless, slender body of a boy of sixteen in his arms, as a trickle of red mixed slowly with the rainwater soaking the thin shirt. The hazel eyes, filled with such love and compassion only moments ago, were empty now, the spark of life fled. The lips still curved in that comforting smile.

Jack carried it with him for the rest of his life, and whenever despair engulfed him, he remembered the beatific smile of the strange boy he had never even known.

quote:

---

Jack was drunk when I met him. Extremely drunk.

---

But why is the rum gone?!?

quote:

---

^_^ Zeke kekeke lala~~ wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
But why is the rum gone?!?

---

lolol

Overall I liked it, especially since I got to quote PotC.

The thing is, the climatic paragraph, where the narrator dies, was a bit clumsy. The way you put it - 'it went off' - could have been a little less vague. It would have worked really well if you said, "there was a loud bang" or something like that.

Good stuff though.