missing

I miss the times we drove. We drove blind and hopeless through the night. Once we drove to France and stopped before we reached the English channel to drink beer. We drank more beer whilst crossing the channel and then drove, drunk, through an ignorant France. From the moment we arrived in that filth-ridden, beaten, crumbling, corrupt place we were completely pissed. We stormed through the streets seeking nothing but alcoholic oblivion. I think it was the best time of my life. I walked bare-footed through the streets and they took it as a great insult to their very nation. The Australian bar had not one employee capable of speaking English and the gourmet Italian restaurant was more like the play area in a pre-school child’s playground... and yet, how we drank. We drank them well and truly under their dirty tables. We met the united nations students and went out with them... they drank orange juice and coffee... and we drank and drank and drank alcohol until it flowed from our bodies in a curse to all pretentious students... in a stance against all who drink orange juice and coffee and all that other crap that the adverts and films and magazines make us believe that we need to be cool whilst existing in a cosmopolitan world. It was in the dark, gay back-alleys that we witnessed the madness and hysteria of true life, where we drank with the barman and watched him smoke joints outside as he waited for us to call for another round. We saw the machine producing beauty that flooded through the Lille streets as we drank Heineken from glasses unseen in any other place or time. We drank for breakfast, lunch and dinner and we stayed awake in the night to drink a little more as we sat outside of the hotel in the cold garden laughing about the days we’d witnessed.