disheveled and quite drunk, he stumbles to the couch fingering his nose. somewhere he’s left his cigarettes and although he doesn’t know quite where, his finds his lighter and starts flicking it in the dark to find them. of course, they’re underneath the coffee table, rumpled and he’s quite sure they’re not the same ones he bought earlier in the day. lighting the first of undoubtedly many, definitely an old pack, stale and rough, he exhales and falls heavily onto the couch. it was supposed to be his big night out, his wife having taken his sister-in-law out to a surprise bachelorette party, but since he didn’t know the groom, he wasn’t invited to the corresponding bachelors. that was alright though, he never quite felt comfortable around strippers, always stared at the game playing above the girls’ heads whenever his friends dragged him to a strip club. and honestly, he was annoyed with the way other men would paw and gaze at these women: there was something passionless and disturbing in their eyes as if the women weren’t really there at all.

blech