Regrets

About a drunken old man with his pockets empty of money and having regrets about his past.

He was drunk. He could feel the blood pulsing through his forehead; the warmth rushing to his skin and his mind doing backflips with he stumbled with every step. The blurriness of his vision captures a blunt, bleak evening with no stars visible in the heavens overhead - either blocked by sheets of rolling clouds or faded out by light pollution. It was as if someone had taken a rubber to the sky. He clenched the bottle of whiskey with an unnerving tightness as he clambered down the stairs from the local pub - his ragged jeans draped onto the stairs as he went.

                It was Christmas Eve - dancing lights that had been put up weeks prior flirted with the man's dazed eyes. He looked up at one of the windows in an old, 18^th-century style building. It surprisingly gave way to a contrastingly modern looking apartment - revealing a mother quietly tucking her son in bed. It was this sight that made tears trickle slowly down his neck, it compelled him to take another drink of his whisky, as he remembered a time when he could have easily fitted into that boy’s shoes.

                When he was young, his father had heavily discriminated against any form of drinking, and forbade him from gambling lest be disowned. But he never listened. He never did. Coming from a reasonably wealthy family had it’s benefits, however it also had certain obvious disadvantages. It meant that he didn’t have to worry about making decisions as much as his less wealthier mates. While he spent his time gambling and drinking, most other people would have been getting an education and planning their futures. As for him, he didn’t give a second thought about his future, other than how many cans of beer he could down in one minute.

                Now as a forty-year-old homeless man, he pushed those depressing thoughts away as he fumbled with a newly lit cigar and pressed it to his lips with his free hand before inhaling. Waves of coughs began erupting out of his throat almost instantaneously - timed with precise intervals like strokes of a clock " the crispy yet unforgiving air tore at his nostrils and lungs. Muttering his last inaudible words that had been mixed in with a final cough, he dropped dead in a forgotten alleyway " sprawled on the ground with his hand still grasping his bottle of whiskey, pressing it to his chest as if hugging his father one last time.