late nights and shallow graves

We sat around a wooden table in a bungalow in the suburbs. 

I don't know how many glasses of red I had, but there were four bottles on the table and only three of us. The Doors played through the speakers while I topped us up using the the careful precision of a drunk. My friends rolled cigarettes as the grey light brightened through the window. Like the glasses of wine, I've no idea how much they smoked but the room looked as though a low fog had rolled in. The cat joined us for awhile, but left when our chat got bad. 

I sipped the nth glass and we spoke about the future and old times and explained just what we were all doing wrong to each other. Beads adorned the doorways whilst old beermats adorned the doors themselves. A lifetime or two's accumulation filled the house with bygone trinkets and energy efficient bulbs cast it all in a sepia light. 

Day arrived and still we drank and chatted, though the pauses became longer and themes shifted with rambling fluidity. The ashtray filled with the scrunched ends of rollups. 

We finished the wine and gathered our things. I was in the kitchen when she discovered the cat. It had died on the porch, in a pool of its own urine. Less than an hour before it had sat on my lap as I scratched its ears. Shortly after that it lapped fresh milk from its bowl. And then it died, ears scratched and full of milk. It wasn't her cat. It was her flatmate's cat. Her flatmate was on holiday in Portugal. 

The other guy and I offered to dig a grave. It was the least we could do. She was upset. He and I were trying not to laugh. It was horrible and hysterical, and there was nothing more we could do than dig a grave and try not to laugh. 

We found a spot shaded by trees and set about it with a shovel and spade. There were roots everywhere, and we were drunk. It was slow going. I nearly took my toes off a fair few times. The earth wouldn't break. Before long we were sweating. The hole didn't seem to get any deeper. Birdsong rang out and the odd car drove by. Eventually we got it dug.

She put the body in a bag and noticed that rigour mortis had set. She lay it in the hole and while we helped to fill it in, she did most of it herself. Then she disappeared inside for a moment, returning with a bottle of silver tequila. Her eyes were red on her pale face. We swigged straight from the bottle and took a moment to pour some over the freshly-filled grave.