Mightier than the Sword

Message in a Bottle

It is all very well to say 'DRINK ME' but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. "No, I will look first," she said, "and see whether it's marked 'poison.'" However, this bottle was not marked 'poison' so Alice ventured to taste it and, finding it very nice... she very soon finished it off.
-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll


I was headed downstairs for lunch when I saw Mike helping someone move out. He turned and waved, and as I got closer, said, "I didn't know you lived on this floor! I've been hanging out with Rachel and Debbie all year, and Kate and I are driving back to Atlanta together." It's a small world. The first and last times I saw Mike were the only times I'd seen him sober. It's strange and slightly unnerving how quickly people change.

I first met Mike a month or two ago at a typical weekend party; typical in all ways except that I was there, since I tend to avoid parties. My roommate Krissy had invited her lab partner, Jacob, to the party and he had in turn invited Mike and some others. Mike told us about how he'd just gotten busted for trying to buy beer with a fake ID. A hundred and fifty dollar fine and 50 hours of community service. "And you know what? I don't even drink- I was buying for these schmucks," he said, tilting his head toward his friends. Everyone laughed and joked about how tonight might be a good night to start. Within a few hours we were driving home with Jacob throwing up out of Krissy's back window and Mike laying semi-conscious across the laps of his other friends. Things were about to change for him. For the rest of the semester, every time I saw Mike he was drunk. He was always smiling and pleasant, but his cheeks would be ruddy and his eyes sometimes looked glazed. He had beautiful eyes- chocolately brown with long dark lashes. Occasionally Jacob would joke about how much and how often Mike drank, and we all would laugh, but I think we all feared that it was getting out of control.

We'd seen him last night, Krissy and I had, when we dropped Jacob off after a late night Denny's meal. He was leaning heavily against the doors of the side entrance to the residence hall. The stairwell lights backlit his face, so at first we weren't sure it was him, but after a few moments of hesitation the silhouette raised his hand in an unsteady greeting and poked his head out the door. "Hey girls!" We could hear the grin on his face and we waved back and asked if he needed anything. "Nope- the Papa John's guy is on the way with everything I need," he had replied happily.

Now here he was in our residence hall, helping Kate carry her bags downstairs. He came over and gave me a bear hug and wished me a safe trip home and a happy summer. I smiled, kind of sadly, and said the same to him, and we went our separate ways. I guess I sort of knew then. Jacob told us later that by the end of the semester Mike had stopped going to classes altogether, and he wouldn't be returning in the fall. We all sighed and wondered to ourselves what he'd do, where he'd end up. Another intelligent person succumbs to alcohol and falls off track. It was almost too obvious. There's a reason they're called clichÈs, I guess. They happen all the time. It's just that usually they happen to someone else's friends.