I walked into the subway station and there she was, behind a pillar, crying hysterically. I mean tears running down her face, red eyes, and stumbling a little, which made me think she was drunk. Was she? Who knows.
Then I saw the broken pieces of glass shattered everywhere, with a pool of clear liquid surrounding them. The bottom of the bottle, still intact, rose from the liquidy shards like a miniature mountain. For once, the subway didn’t have that dank smell created from too many people shoved into an underground room.
Instead, it smelled of liquor. Purifying, clean liquor. It would have been a nice change if not for the tearful twenty-something sobbing without control.
I assumed she was drunk, hence the stumbling, but as I sat on the subway, I tried to put a better spin on it. Maybe the bottle was a gift for someone. Maybe it was an expensive gift, one she saved for, to impress a boyfriend, or girlfriend, or best friend or boss or lover or some other kind of person important to her life.
That kind of broke my heart, so instead I went back to my original thought. She was drunk, wanted to keep the party going, and would have to figure out another way to do so.
A Flash of Inspiration 