Whiskey

Warm molten amber coats my throat and then my stomach slow like honey, but tastes like naptha or witch hazel, except with a slightly smoky, oaken finish - my lips go numb, the lower part of my face soon follows, I can no longer feel my cheekbones. Only a Scotch will do nowadays, and an old one at that. Kentucky Straight Bourbon or Canadian no longer make the cut, unsophisticated booze for unsophisticated drinking - multiple shots of Crown with a Coors Light chaser, then a night of throwing up in a parking lot followed by a morning of headache and dehydration. Or a pint of Jack hidden in an overcoat on a cold winter's afternoon, consumed straight, in secret, in public. I breathe fire - antiseptic, sterile breath, clean, my lungs filtering and separating the foreign solvent from the hemaglobin, scented, as Vonnegut says, "...like mustard gas and roses."