Spine

Once again, Vicky is alone on Christmas Eve. After spending almost all her money on fancy cocktails she had never heard of until now, she is more than tipsy, walking up a random street, singing at the top of her voice. When some bastard throws an egg at her from a fourth floor window, which misses her by mere inches, and shouts at her to shut the hell up, she twirls about, throws her almost empty bottle of red wine in his general direction, and listens as it crashes against the brick wall, watching shards of it fall in front of her.

“Crazy bitch!” the same voice yells, and the window is slammed shut.

“And merry Christmas to you too, motherfucker!” Vicky shouts at the bastard, and just to top it off, takes a stance on the footpath, opens her mouth and screams with all the volume her lungs can handle. If anybody makes any comments, Vicky doesn’t hear them, can’t hear them, doesn’t want to hear them. With no will to stop, and a much needed chance at sobriety, Vicky screams full volume for about a minute. When, finally, her throat begins to hurt, and the sound she is emanating turns hoarse and uneven, she shuts her mouth and continues walking.

She hears a thump in the alley to her right and freezes. This is when she finally realises that she is in potential danger – alone in a street with an alleyway on hand, drunk and having just attracted a mass of attention to herself. The thought sobers her up slightly, as she creeps closer to the alley. Hoping to make sure that she is safe, she glances into the thin area, and sees no sign of movement, no silhouettes, nothing. Drunken interest gets the best of her, and she cautiously tip-toes into the alley. She walks slowly, cat-like, making sure her feet land softly, trying to stay alert in case of any signs of danger, but her ears whistle from the force of her own shouting.

One small footstep after the other, and she is in the center of the alley. She can go forward, or she can go back. Instead, she stands still for a moment and looks around. Then, feeling more tired than afraid, she sits on the ground. Vicky situates her left hand, yet when she attempts to put down her right, she gets the fright of her life, as she attempts to lean on something soft and warm.

Jumping up, her heart racing, only half drunk now, Vicky stares at what she has touched, but the fear-induced tears won’t stop blurring her vision, making it difficult to see. All she can distinguish is a silhouette of a person. When her eyesight finally becomes clear again, she jumps up and backwards as she realises that the man in front of her is completely naked, except for a pair of socks, which doesn’t seem to match itself. She lets out a grunt of offense, and turns to get the hell out of there, but something stops her from leaving. She just can’t leave him here alone – he seems so fragile, so delicate. His waist is barely wider than her own, and Vicky hasn’t eaten a carb since her sixteenth birthday, over two years ago.

She kneels down next to the man again, and touches his wrist with her index finger, hoping to find a pulse, but her intoxication refuses to allow her to concentrate on the signal. Too squeamish to touch the man’s neck, let alone put her head on his chest in order to listen for the heartbeat, Vicky stands up and takes off her black woolen trench coat. She is too drunk to feel the summer night chill anyway. Covering the man with the coat, she wonders what she should do next.

Not wanting to leave him there naked in the cold, and refusing to lose her beloved piece of clothing, she takes a deep breath, runs back out into the street and stands under the general area of the window, out of which the man had shouted at her.

“Excuse me!” she yells, in an attempt to catch the man’s attention again. “Can you help me?” Even through her intoxication, which is far less dominant now, Vicky refuses to lose control of her voice, making sure she doesn’t sound too scared or vulnerable.

After about twenty seconds of silence, she calls again: “Please!”

This time, it seems to work. The man sticks his head out of the window and looks down at the girl, who hops on one foot, then the other in her nervousness.

“What the hell do you want? Do you need to piss or something?” he shouts in a gruff tone. Vicky immediately stands still, realising her gesture.

“No, there is a man passed out in an alleyway down there.” She points towards the place she came from. “He’s naked. I gave him my coat.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” he growls. Vicky can see that he hasn’t forgiven her for the ruckus she had caused earlier.

“Please, sir. This isn’t for me, it’s for the man. And I’m sorry for waking you up. I was just drunk. I guess I’m still a little drunk and I just don’t know what to do…” She starts hopping up and down again, panicking like a schoolgirl before her first exam.

There is more silence before the man disappears from the window completely. Vicky sighs and shakes her head. She is anxious to get back to the man, in case he wakes up – she really does love that coat – but she is hoping that the man in the window will change his mind again and come back out, but before she has a chance to look up again, the building door opens, and a man of about thirty-five stands in front of her. He seems to be at least six feet and two inches tall, which intimidates Vicky, and makes her feel smaller than the five feet and eight inches she possesses. She can’t see the man’s face in the dark, which makes him seem all the more hazardous.

“I was already awake.” The same voice that shouted at her out of the window now has a gentle tone, and although the man is talking down to Vicky, his voice is closer to her ear, and she can hear just how pleasant and calming it can be. “Now where’s the patient?” his voice seems to take on a smirk, and Vicky leads the way to the alley.

When they reach the passed out man, the man standing next to Vicky whistles through his teeth and nudges him with one foot.

“Be careful!” Vicky pleads, as though the man he is kicking is her own brother.

“Yep, he’s out of it. What do you plan to do with him?” the man asks after successfully checking his pulse.

“I don’t know.” Her voice takes on a panicked tone again.

“He just needs some time to rest and get himself together. I don’t think he’d want to go to the hospital with no proper clothes on. Do you wanna take him to your house or something? Then you can get your coat back when he wakes up and tells you where he left his clothes. If he remembers, that is.”

“Couldn’t you give him some of your clothes?” Vicky begs. She doesn’t want a random man in her house. Much less does she want to lose her coat.

“No way. Do you have any idea how much things cost these days? I’m not giving him my stuff.” The man backs off.

Afraid that her pleading will scare him off completely, Vicky drops it. “Do you think it’s safe for me to take him to my place?” she asks after a few thought-filled moment.

“I dunno, man. He doesn’t look like he’s in shape to hurt anyone though. I can drive you guys to your house if you want. If you don’t live too far, that is.”

Vicky smiles at the man’s kindness. She only lives a couple of blocks down, but she couldn’t drag the passed out man all that way if her life depended on it, even though he probably weighs less than Vicky herself.

“Yes please,” she whispers in a fragile voice, afraid of the man sprawled in front of her, yet wanting to comfort him, to look after him. It’s about time for her to do something heroic, she decides. Karma has definitely been turning away from her lately.

“Alright then. But you shouldn’t stay here. It’s dangerous for a young woman. How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-two,” she lies, hoping not to seem too new to the world, in case the man has mind to trick her the way one would lure a child into a van with a sweet. Vicky’s alcohol levels seem to have gone down completely.

“Really?” his tone is disbelieving. “Alright, let’s go to my car then. We’ll pick him up in a second, it’s not far at all.”

The girl nods meekly, swallows, and follows the man back into the light. This is, without argument, Vicky’s most interesting Christmas Eve come Christmas morning ever.