I was only in a childish way connected to the established order.

I just got back from a crazy night of drinking. The residues of alcohol in my system and my apparent lack of sleep are getting to my head – and my thoughts are splintering themselves in a hailstorm of confusion.

I slept on the couch of the living room of my friend’s house after having too much to drink – slept nearly immediately, then woke up some time later for reasons I don’t know why. I slouched there, letting my focus wander by itself, then overheard things I shouldn’t have heard. Of my three close friends who made scathing, biting remarks behind my back in Mandarin, assuming I was still fast asleep. I was being placed on a pedestal and dissected thoroughly with no chance of defending myself before them.

I shouldn’t have awaken then. I should’ve still remained blissfully ignorant of the double-edged thoughts floating around me. I should be a pacified baby not knowing truths that hurt.

In hindsight, it probably was good to know how my friends really felt about the things I did or said, instead of masking them with apathy or humour or silence.

In the end I couldn’t stand listening anymore, and walked out from the house – I was drunkenly pissed. I walked all the way back home, with my laptop bag on my back, ignoring the possible dangers of getting robbed or killed at 3am in the morning. I didn’t care anymore.

All the while whilst I was walking back, a line from a Mandelshtam’s poem quoted in Elliot Perlman’s short story kept replaying in my head, of which I took solace in:

I was only in a childish way connected to the established order.