The Turbulence?? (#1 in the Our Side of The Dice series)

2: The Fattest Rum!

The sound produces a reverberation of even lousier metallic objects banging against each other in my head, making my head twinge to another level of pain. Still, nothing comes out of the airless bottle.

All of that noise only for you to be so darn stingy like the dead sea! Why won't you let this cup receive from you?!

I hold the stubborn, disobedient bottle in my hand, concluding that it deserves no mercy, and I release my soft grip on the weighty bottle. Then, it winces, groaning out loud with a smash on the wooden floor—the once rigid, mocking expression on its face dissolving into a cowardly shriek.

"Serves you right!"

I look around. No one seems to hear the cries of the useless vodka bottle. Even better. I get on my feet like a three-month-old baby walking for the first time, and the darn floor beneath my feet doesn't even make it any easier for me.

The sloppiness of the floor makes me wobble through the bar like a catfish on land, but somehow, I find myself moving regardless of the unpredictable waves of the floor, hoping it doesn't get more challenging for me.

The other people at the bar are not doing much except slouching. Suddenly, one of the patrons holds out his tankard, and the bartender turns his suspicious gaze from me and starts filling the mug with a glistening amber liquid. As soon as it's full, the man drinks it down in one gigantic gulp. I'm so jealous of his alcohol. I wonder why mine wouldn't listen to my commands.

Maybe vodkas aren't so reliable after all.

I need something that would help me sink deeply into oblivion. I'm tired of having my mind dribble back and forth between my wife, my mother, and the unknown lady that I am betrothed to!

"Ey, man!" I pound the bar with my fist. "I want some great rum! The fattest, rosiest rum you have! Lots of them!"

***
A hand taps my shoulder. With some difficulty, I turn around to see a strange young lady standing before me. Her face carries a smile that is not so friendly but not so severe either. It's more like a smile you give someone that tells a lame joke, but you fake a smile, so they don't feel embarrassed.

"I believe I have discovered my man," she mutters and makes an inconspicuous hand gesture. "My name is Irene Giwa, a single woman who has been in search of her betrothed lover for so many years!" her voice is dreamy all of a sudden, as though she'd just seen the northern lights.

She continues, the dreaminess in her voice now mixed with something dark. "Ever since I was betrothed to him at a very young age, I had little memory of what he looked like, but I guess that's where the potency of female intuition and instincts comes into place,"

"S-s-so what am I s-supposed to do with this irrelevant piece of information?" my head is throbbing more painfully now as some form of punishment for trying to use the part of my brain responsible for speaking. That part of my brain is not willing to be used. Still, I take one last risk. "If you are bored or in need of someone to tell the story of your life to, go to those German men over there, or the strap...stray...strippers dancing their lives a-away, "

She frowns. I don't know if it's my currently impaired vision, but she looks like a horse frowning like that.

"Well, there shall be no need for that since I'm talking to the right person, Mr. Christopher," she says, taking a seat next to me so effortlessly that it makes me furious. On a typical day, I would wonder how she got to know my name, but I am too interested in these obnoxious floors that are so unfair.

It's unfair that the floors didn't give her a hard time as they did to me. I wished she'd slipped and probably lost a tooth.

"Look, iron, "

"It's Irene." she corrects, and she leans forward, her face only inches away from mine.

I do not have your time. Pleaseeeeee ssstayyyyy away from me while I'm acting nice. I don't know you. You don't walk up to someone you don't know and begin to give them a hard time, narrating unwanted tales to them. You might get what you don't like, and I detest hurting women. I have a woman in my life that I love and miss so much, but she wouldn't even let me...

"Kisssssss her!"

Stop talking!

"Whoa! Why are you thinking so loudly?!" Her face is full of amusement as she asks the question.

"W-what do y-you mean?" Ignoring the ongoing protests my brain is making, I take another risk by daring to speak, and my head throbs again.

"You just asked me to kiss you! Talk about being bored and crazy!" There's an elated grin on her face, and her voice is suddenly shallow. She mannerlessly cups my chin with her long, slender fingers, and her face is even closer to mine, but for some reason, my hands feel so heavy. It's hard to make use of them to yank her hands away.

"No! I told you to stay away! Didn't you freaking hear that?!" My attempts to yell only result in abrupt raspiness instead. I realize that my brain is dealing with me like it promised to.

I thought I'd said what I wanted to say to her aloud and not in my head. But my brain filtered the wrong set of words, and I tell the wrong words out loud. What the hell?!

"And I wasn't referring to you when I said that! Jeez. J-just stay away, you darn daughter of Jezebel!" I force the words out of my mouth, hoping that I said them aloud now.

"No, baby. I know what you want, but you're too exhausted and angry to say it properly, and believe me when I tell you that I want it too. I searched for you for so long. I was so lonely and depressed, but I've found you now, and that is all that matters,"

"Are you...?" For a few minutes, it's hard to decipher what's giving me a hard time with trying to utter an entire sentence – whether it's my migraine or the feel of something on my lips. It's pressing itself so hard yet seems to fit perfectly. It's curtailing my breath and ability to talk. The feel of it is something like wetness from salivary glands?

Immediately after realizing that the wench is kissing me, I can't do anything to stop it. My head is now throbbing at an unbearable speed, and my eyes and hands feel heavier than a yam tuber.

My hands can't even reach for one of the rum bottles staring impatiently to be used as a tool of havoc. Still, it's just at that crucial moment that all the alcohol stored in my stomach for the night chooses to hold me captive as I am forced to succumb to the darkness rapidly seizing me.

With those lips still heavy on mine.