Sometimes I'm Happy

From above, I see a calm, crimson circle.

There is something special about this shape. I am reluctant to use the word 'perfect' - but truly, there is no other. I envy its simplicity.

I find myself wondering more often whether I should bother with a glass at all. The only thing that keeps me drinking straight from the bottle is this childlike game I play, leaning forwards over the glass and looking down, closing one eye, then the other, trying to move my perspective so I see the surface of the wine in a perfect circle.

It makes me smile. It is not wide or endearing - but a smile, nonetheless. They are hard to come by.

I pour a few more drops into the glass, trying my utmost to ensure the liquid lands precisely in the centre. Of course, I fail. My hands are so unsteady these days.

The fragile circle is upset, wavelets expand and contract across the surface. I feel a strange sense of guilt. Not the guilt I live with every waking hour, the guilt that anchors my mind to a night three years ago - an overturned car, a vision blurred by smoke and booze, a dead girl in the passenger seat next to me...

No, this guilt derives from nothing more than the simple act of topping up a glass of wine, disturbing the surface as I do so.

Isn't that odd.

It occurs to me that if I pour, maybe, a quarter of a glass and drink the rest from the bottle then the circle I made would never need to be disturbed.

Yes, that's the solution.

I stop pouring and take one last urgent gulp from the glass leaving it a fraction full. Equilibrium - my circle - is restored. The same shape, only smaller. I appreciate its beauty and again, for the briefest of moments, I forget my guilt.

I raise the narrow neck of the wine bottle to my trembling lips and wonder if there is hope for me after all...