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It’s my little brother’s thirty-seventh birthday today. Congratulations little buddy, only a few more to go. Way back in the day a friend of ours had a house party. I think you might have been seventeen. About halfway into the evening our friends older brother came up from the basement with a bottle of homemade red wine. He uncapped it and took a drink. Then you took it from him, said something like “that’s not how you drink” and you proceeded to take at least half the bottle in one slam.

Technical Stuff: This is actually the first of three shots I took which, in reverse, look like we’re about to die. In their proper order, however, it looks like he was initially responding to something horrible, but which then turned out to just be a mild and harmless hallucination involving trees. The first thing you need to get a shot like this is a little brother with a drivers licence. If you don’t have one I suppose you could try adoption.

Not too long afterwards you were sitting on their front steps puking stuff that stained their walkway red for days. When my friends and I were ready to go I went to find you and you were passed out on the living room floor, and people were flicking bottlecaps at you. So I picked you up and put you in the car with us, and we took you home, where we put you in bed. We were leaving but someone said we should flip you onto your stomach, so if you puked again you wouldn’t choke on your own vomit and die. I agreed, and we left you lying on your stomach and you didn’t die… so you owe me.

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