AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 NIPS

Kyla had left him so Frank decided to drink every miniature bottle of booze they’d collected on their numerous holidays abroad, be it cruises, package tours or basic standard trips. It would take all night but it seemed a suitably symbolic challenge to him to depart on this solitary, booze-soaked voyage as a way of signing off on their thirty years of marriage that had ended in ruin.

He started with a limoncello from Italy, moving swiftly onto a Cognac from Paris which had a poodle in front of the Eiffel Tower on the front of the bottle then downing a Cahaca from Brazil and a Tequila from Mexico, Frank noticed that the grinning Mariachi on the label looked like the guy he suspected Kyla had left him for - goddam Emiliano.

By the time he got to the Russian Vodka, Frank was getting weepy and starting to skip through his broken heart playlist on Spotify to find a track that emotionally matched his alcohol content. Best he could find was Conway Twitty singing 'Hello, Darlin'' and he was tempted to call Kyla right there and then and sing his own drunken rendition but thought better of it. She was a typical Gemini and once her switch had flipped there was no turning back.

Knocking back an Irish then a Scotch whiskey, Frank started to feel an uneasy swirling and sloshing in the pit of his stomach and imagined the inside of his belly as looking like an oil painting palette with an uncomfortable clash of tones and colours that had been drowned in a torrent of turpentine.

Heading to the bathroom in case he needed to throw up, Frank clutched a dozen 'countries' in his hands and worked his way through the last of his holiday memories whilst collapsed close to the toilet. The Conway Twitty track he'd left on repeat was echoing across the hallway and sounded to his partially deaf ears eerie and ghostly. Too drunk to change it, it seemed Frank was stuck in a kind of paralytic purgatory.

After a Spanish sherry and a sake from Japan, Frank laughed at the grim irony that the final bottle in his hand was from his own state of Kentucky and was the same drink he shared with Kyla in the back of his Mercury Bobcat on their very first date before they both gave away their virginity to one another.

But as determined as he had been to get through all of his 80 'nips', he couldn't bring himself to drink this one. It would be too bittersweet.

Falling into a deep sleep with various bottles rolling around his collapsed arms on the bathroom floor, Frank had a bad dream about being on a sinking cruise ship where he had agreed to be the first to jump off-board in order to delay the inevitable submerging of the vessel and give Kyla a chance of being rescued. Taking short, sharp breaths, he just about remained afloat in the freezing dark ocean where clinking miniatures bobbed all around him. As he looked up to the bow of the ship framed against the night sky he saw a grinning Emiliano waving back at him.

"NO!"

Frank woke up in a cold sweat with a throbbing headache and the Conway Twitty still blasting throughout the house. He scrambled to get his 'sea legs' so he could make his way to the sink and drink some water from the tap in order to rehydrate himself.

But as he pulled himself off the bathroom rail and took his first step forward, he slipped on 'Kentucky' and went flying in the air only to crash back down to earth landing awkwardly on his back.

Lying in a state of agony, Frank reflected on how in all of his trips abroad with Kyla he'd never once had an accident. In the last twelve hours he'd merely travelled the short distance between his living room and his bathroom and was now looking at a possible spinal injury.

Frank turned his head to see if he could still rotate it and noticed the 'Kentucky' had survived his full weight and had rolled conveniently to the foot of the toilet basin, well within his reach. He unscrewed the lid and necked it in one.

Although suffering tremendous pain, having finally done the full '80', Frank felt some form of achievement in meeting the challenge he'd set himself the night before.

His next challenge however, would be finding his phone so he could call an ambulance.

If only Kyla was still around Frank thought to himself as a sudden tidal wave of melancholy washed over him.