Synopsis:

After being brutally attacked on the street, a young woman realizes she needs help with her alcoholism. She goes to rehab and then moves into sober living. Gradually she realizes the horror of addiction, mental illness, and humanity itself.

 

Opening:

Death and I had known each other for a long time. Not intimately, but more like a stranger I would see every morning across the crowded train. He was there everyday, and we began to exchange glances, acknowledge each other’s presence with a nod or a smile, but never go so far as to speak.

 

One evening I was walking home from the subway station. It was warm and I was already more than tipsy from the vodka I always kept in a repurposed water bottle in my bag. 

 

I lit a cigarette and meditated to the sound of my heels clicking on the sidewalk. My thoughts drifted to the liquor store next door to my apartment. I had enough to get me through the night, but I would need to stop there in order to fend off the aches and tremors that plagued my waking hours.

 

As I left the liquor store, I noticed a man blocking the doorway to my building. He was probably my height, a little on the heavy side, and neither dark nor fair in complexion. He wasn’t dirty or unkempt, but I found his appearance unsettling. His orange parka wasn’t suited for the mild spring weather.

 

“Yo, ma,” he called to me.

 

I walked past him, thinking if I looped around the block, he might simply move on and I would be able to get inside my building without confrontation. 

 

He followed. I walked faster and turned the corner. There was a row of closed shop fronts, a bodega, and a pizza place, “Mamacita! I’m talking to you!”

 

I kept walking in earnest toward the brightly lit Duane Reade on the corner of the next block. My mind was muddled and so were my hurried footsteps. The soft, dreamy blur of drunkenness was now an acrid fog.

 

“Bitch!” He hit me with something heavy and I crumpled. He hit me again and I heard the door of the pizza shop swing open, the little tinkle of the bell tied to the handle, and people shouting. I smelled the grease and garlic and baking bread.

 

 As I lost consciousness, I knew I had crossed a dangerous line. I saw that familiar stranger from the train, we locked eyes, he smiled and said, “Hello”.