How the hell did I end up this way?

I wasn't even drunk. Yes, I reek of alcohol and sweat. I may have had more than I used to. It was intentional, as though I wanted a slight sense of hurtling myself into the streets in beer mug goggles. I always stop when I knew I'm unable to take any longer. This arresting giddiness, this was planned.

The man who ran a knife around my neck earlier was gone. He could be dead. I couldn't hear a whimper or a slight clatter, I'm slumped in an alley anyway, trying to prop myself up, thoughtlessly believing my back would grope itself against the wall if I press too hard. There is a slight graze across my throat deep enough to bleed. I could only press my collar against it, thank God, how I constantly sport a hood even in the slightest chill.

The person in front of me, I could only grasp piece by piece, as long as my vision could pinpoint without collapsing to a blur. The slight illumination of a distant lamppost was like a stroke of yellow crayons on white paper, not much assistance to my perception. A slim figure, breasts probably, what else could make lumps on that chest? A she, a notion of a she, hair long and dark, a pair of rippled cascades at the sides of her cheek. Her eyes, they caught light, a phosphorescent yellow pair. A she, an it, a masquerade of a woman, she turned to me, approached me gradually, a looming shadow against a gradual source of light.

That slight intoxication, that rendering state of being shattered in the brain, it might be some justification to stay still, to embrace everything.

I pressed myself against the wall again, flexed my knees the furthest I could go. Then halfway from the angle of my legs being more than 90-degree bent, my stomach hurled and I was spewing down a blended concoction of alcohol and my late dinner.

I'm sober. Slightly. The excuse to appear indifferent is gone. The quasi-woman before me froze, gazed down at the puddle of vomit on the asphalt. My eyes were now adjusting lenses, trying to make out the features of her face. My mouth tasted bitter and I spat, brushed my sleeve across my face and looked straight at her, uttering in a hoarse, gritting manner the way a small dog gathers a growl to sound larger:

"Who the fuck are you?"

She lifted her face, her features more discernible, more familiar now. Yet she was nothing human, like a synthetic replica of a person I knew before. She was patient to allow me to scrutinize what I was perceiving, to see if I ever recalled. When I remembered, I staggered and stepped back. What I'm perceiving is a lie, a hideous joke from an erroneous judgment that can take more than I can handle. No, I'm not tipsy, I'm drunk. I'm fucking drunk.

"Cal," she said, "I think you know."