The Scintilla Project, Day 1. The Mark.

Day 1.  Tell a story about a time you got drunk before you were legally able to do so.

They were good days.  Summer days, days when Rob was still courting Pavel's mother.  We were happy for her, happy to see her finding companionship after all these years, finding well-deserved happiness after raising Pavel and Katya by herself.

More importantly, we were happy to see them spend long weekends on Rob's boat.  In their absence, we gathered our band of lovable misfits, our fellow rejects, our band buddies, and we sampled their comprehensive liquor cabinet.

That night, we were all high school clever, sure to only skim a nip or two from each bottle, careful to hide our tracks.  We basked in our mischief, bellies warmed with vermouth and creme de menthe.  But we grew more daring; we craved more.  It was Pavel who approached me.  "Look what I found," he said, a devilish grin staining his visage.

It was beautiful.  A trapezoidal bottle, smoothed around the edges, honey-amber fluid behind a parchment label.  Neck drenched in a cascade of crimson wax.  "It was in the armoire, buried in the back."

"Shots?"

"Shots."

Later in life, I would know them as rocks glasses.  Heavy for their size, a mouth broad and inviting.  We filled them to the brim, as we'd seen in old movies, and with bravado thrumming through our veins, we drained them.

I could feel the fire chase my blood to my fingertips.  My eyes widened at the burn as I looked to my old friend.  "I can feel it in my chest," I uttered in wonderment.

"I can feel it in my toes," he replied.

"Again?"

"Again."

...

They say they found us at the A&P down the road.  I, sprawled out on the floor of the refrigerated aisle, he, slumped against the Pillsbury display, tubes of cookie dough surrounding us like shrapnel from a grenade.  I remember none of this.  I remember none of the night that followed.

I awoke to daylight and silence, bewildered and blind.  As I slid my legs off the couch, I heard my shoes crunch the shards of the decorative punch bowl they had left in my lap.  Trembling fingers slid my glasses into place as I rose to survey the damage.

It was like Jonestown.  Bodies strewn about the house, half-empty cups beside them.  Pavel in the guest bedroom, clad only in a shower curtain.  Others wretched and wasted, curled up on the floor or behind half-closed doors in unfortunate couplings.

I stepped outside to greet the day with a burnt cookie I had found on the stove.  I squinted at the smirking sun as I stepped over the wash of vomitous discharge that carpeted the concrete porch.  And I smiled as I gnawed on the blackened disk of chocolate chip.  It was a good day.  For even then, I knew.

This was only the beginning.