The White Lady

Chuck gave us cocktails to work off.  Our title was a cocktail and we based our flash fiction on it.  Mine?  The White Lady... pretty cool.  I've never drunk it as I don't drink alcohol... but ooohhh... it's getting late and my imagination is working overtime.

The cell was crowded, but she was there standing outside the bars looking at me smiling… and it was all her fault.

I hated her for what she made me do at the bar.

Out in the car park…

…oh, God, to that cop…

Tears blurred my vision as I looked down again whispering, “Shit.”

The problem was that nobody believed me about her… they said there was nobody of her description near me when I exploded into that white hot rage she caused when she was nearby.

And glancing around, I’d say a few of these guys in the drunk tank have seen their fair share of their own pink elephants, green imps and crap-arse nymphs flippin’ them the bird from a tree branch in their time.  But for me, it was the White Lady who got me in trouble each and every time… and I mean the drink and that bitch over there.

Now, let me start from the beginning… okay?

My mates and me were going out on the town to enjoy our evening.  We hit a few clubs and sunk a few brews before we decided to have a couple of cocktails with some ladies… they were sweet, sexy and dressed to rock-and-or-roll!  You know that type, one or two were teases, there was always one dressed like a dude who was normally the leader of the pack (and kept her head above water, even if she did get a few into her), and then there were the ones who looked like they just got out of control no matter what the leader did to help them.  But they were all in for a great time.

The great time turned nasty very quickly; and thanks to the leader of the ladies pack, they split in time for me to lose it.  How that happened was that they started ordering cocktails… you know the types:  very strong ones… Flaming Lamborghinis, Sex on the Beach and Hurricane’s Winter (yeah that last one was a new one I’ve never heard of, but it kicked arse!).  Then, one of them ordered everyone The White Lady… well, we were all off our faces enough from the strong ones, but when this last one hit us, it hit us bad – or good, it depends on how it affected each of us. 

Some of the girls were crook as hell.  The leader was violent and picked a fight with me, which she won, but got put into the ladies’s lockup for the night.  But I heard her talking about the white lady telling her to do all that shit… now, I hadn’t drunk my White Lady cocktail when she was blathering about this.  And when I did, my whole world turned upside down.

One minute it was great, the next?  Well, I found myself on the ground with two cops sitting on me and cuffing me, telling me my rights and that bitch dressed in white smirking at me from inside the paddy wagon… she chatted to me all the way to the station; whispering into my ear.  I did my best to ignore her and ended up pushing my face into the corner crying because she just wouldn’t shut the fuck up!

Now, I’m here, she standing there staring me down. 

Her voice is going around and around in my head.

And that bloody smirk is really getting on my nerves!  But I am trying to stay calm… I won’t break… I swear.

Daybreak.

I feel like hell.

But the white lady isn’t around anymore… damn.  It was the drink that caused my problems.

How the hell am I going to convince the court about this?

My folks bail me out and I’m taken home.

Mum and Dad sit me down and talk to me… asking me what the hell went wrong and I tell them what I remember, but they exchange a look that only means that there’s more to this story.

“Sweetie, your friends are dead.” Mum said.

Dad frowns, “You went into a rage and killed them.”

“What?”

They can tell I honestly don’t know what they’re talking about.

My court date has arrived.  I’m fumbling with my tie… and Dad fixes it for me.  It’s the middle of Winter and I’m sweating like a pig.

“I’m scared out of my mind.”

He stops fixing it and looks me in the eye, and I know he’s scared too, “Yeah, same here.”

Mum calls from the living room, “It’s time to go.”

Man, I looked and sounded like a mad man in court that day.  The judge gave me a withering look for the whole time I spoke; but he seemed to listen to my side of the story as my friends’ parents glared at me from across the peanut gallery. 

I had one problem in that courtroom that day… the white lady was sitting in the far back corner.  And when the lawyer asked me if I saw the person who provoked me in the room that day, I said yes and pointed her out.

But nobody saw her, and so it wasn’t recorded legally.

I’m sitting in the day room of the institution writing this out in a diary; just as the shrink has asked me to.  She told me that they’ve seen so many people pass through here due to that new cocktail who have lost so many friends to what it does to them. 

The white lady is in here too… her voice is in my head all the time.

She in my dreams…

The white lady won’t leave me alone… and my shrink knows it.   

It really makes you wonder…

Exactly how many people are in here who can see the white lady?  And…

…is she sitting across from them now, as she is sitting with me now, whispering always in my ear… to always … do … bad.