Not Feeling Yourself?

When you come to, you’re in a strange apartment in one of those neighborhoods that first your mother, then your friends warn you not to get lost in, and you do not know the name of the person next to you, much less the way home. You remember there was a pizza party at Katie’s and you wonder if the apartment got trashed. You lift your hands, inspect your fingers and are inexplicably relieved to find no blood on them. Not home free yet, you scan the unfamiliar room for signs of clothing. Almost every item is black, so the blood, were there any, would be hard to see. Before you get up, you make sure the person next to you appears to be equally free of bloodstains.

Getting up turns out to be a less appealing proposition than you had first thought. You are expecting your head to feel like a pothole, but are unprepared for the lack of motor response. More than asleep, your arms feel incapacitated. There are no pins and needles. The opposite of phantom limb syndrome, you feel nothing where your arms need to be. Your legs are fairing no better, so your brain, though hugely malfunctioning, is your only hope. You concentrate.

You don’t remember beer, you stayed away from the colas and tonics; you must have gone with vodka and something sweet. The backs of your eyelids attest to the kamikaze verdict. Your stomach is in disaccord, certain that you had rum. Many rums. As your eyes roll back in your numbing head, your mouth falls open and a thick line of drool begin to spill out. Your collarbone feels damp and cool, as if the skin were peeling right off. You feel hungry, and your teeth begin to snap, but you cannot think of a single meal that appeals to you, that might assuage the sudden howling in your bowels. Just before you pass out again it comes to you. One drink, many versions: zombie.

333 words for including ZOMBIE (noun) 3: a mixed drink made of several kinds of rum, liqueur, and fruit juice.