This overnight shift is killing me. Slowly, at an almost imperceptible pace, my mind is eroding and my back is breaking. Fourteen hours on the line, seven days a week for nineteen straight days. My fingers are worn to the bone from the assembly line, and I've grown hard to the touch of those I used to love. My eyes are bloodshot from endless hours of florescent lighting and lack of sleep. My nostrils burn from acidic vapors left over by chemicals we use to clean the floors, and also from the speed I inhale to stay awake on double shifts. And while I haven't yet confirmed it, I suspect my teeth are rotting from endless cups of coffee I drain to combat the headaches I get when I try to quit drinking coffee. It's a vicious cycle, but somehow it seems fitting. I am twenty-four years old, my doctor says that if I keep this life up, I won't live to see thirty. I'm shooting for twenty-seven, an age good enough for Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. If it was good enough for them, I don't see any reason it isn't good enough for me.

None of that matters as the whistle blows, eleven am, quitting time, and for the first time in nearly three weeks, I have tomorrow off. Nevermind that I've been up for nearly twenty hours, I'm going out for a drink. In fact, I'm going out for drinks, plural. I'm going to drink until I can't drink anymore, and then I'm going to have one more for the road. After that, I'm going to stumble back to my crappy little apartment off Lyndale, and I'm going to sleep for fifteen or so hours straight.

As I go through the turnstiles and out to the Union parking lot, my mouth waters, and I start to get a bit of energy from some hidden reserve. Fucking eh, I'm going to have a drink. Lots of drinks. And then tomorrow off, fucking eh right.

The drive home passes in usual fashion. I am too tired to notice anything on the road and probably shouldn't be driving in the first place, but I make it, I always do. 55 to 62 to 35W, get off on Lake and over to Lyndale. No problem. The CC Club stands out like an oasis in the desert, a beacon of hope, the Promised Land. Fucking eh, Beauty, Perfection in the form of a dive bar in South Minneapolis.

The inside is dark and on the cool side of things. Not a soul in the place save a few hip businessmen hiding out from the corporate monster, and a couple of old men that frequent all dive bars during all hours of operation. Old men posing as professional drinkers, old men with yellow livers, living off disability checks, paying their rent and staying as drunk as possible. Barflys. Ignoring them all, I get a stool dead in the middle of the taps, let there be no mistake, I am on a mission. I am going to get fucked up.

"Hey Keep, how about some whiskey, Canadian stuff, and a Premo to chase," I say, and it feels good. Real good. At this point I feel almost human. Two glasses appear on the heavy oak bar in front of me, a small one of dark amber fire, and a pint sized one of a honey colored extinguisher. I smile because it's been awhile, and because I need this. I need this drink more than I need food or sleep, more than companionship, more than oxygen. I need this drink to forget about my crappy life, and my crappy job, and my god-awful apartment. I need this drink to forget that I haven't been to church in a year and haven't talked to my family in months. I need it to forget about that beautiful girl, the one I was scared to commit to, to one who loved me way more than I've ever loved myself. I need this drink to forget about going back to school, to forget my dreams of writing, to forget that I've pretty much already forgotten what it feels like to be happy.

I raise the small glass of fire and look to the ceiling, I nod, because I always do, and slam the fire down my throat and the glass onto the bar. It makes a satisfying thud, the startled businessmen look up briefly; the Barflys never move, they've heard my sound a million times before. Twenty-four down, three to go.