When I was in Cork a while back, I very kindly and generously gave my brother a lift back from the pub about midnight. As we got back to what I suppose at some point I will have to stop calling my parents’ house, we saw a girl – late teens maybe – sitting on the pavement, propped against a wall, alone and passed out.
We parked the car and went back up the road. She seemed extremely vulnerable to me in her skimpy summer outfit. We tried to wake her up but to no real avail. Then her phone beside her started to ring so I answered it and it was a friend looking for her. I told him where we were. In the interim, the girl woke up and threw up on the pavement several times. She got up on to very shaky feet, pulled down her skirt and started to talk. I was actually surprised by her level of recovery. Her friend arrived and we handed her over and she wended unsteadily off into the night with him.
I suppose I know that young people get drunk. It’s not like people were particularly sober when I was in college. But I don’t ever remember seeing someone abandoned by friends like that on the side of the road. Maybe she slipped away from her friends. I’m not sure what the moral is here – I mean several leap to mind but who am I etc – but it made me feel a bit gloomy all round.
Thank you for stopping for her and checking her out. In our town we have had a spate of young people, mostly men, falling in the river and drowning after nights out. It’s all very difficult but I do think that we live in different times and can’t apply our own experiences
That is probably wise, Heather.