Mrs. Falls a lot's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Mrs. Falls a lot wanted to never be sober again, and she was running out of ways to get there. She sat at the patio table with a beer in each hand. Behind her, the brewery poured a golden waterfall down its wall, endless and free. She drank both mugs empty. Then she waited. The buzz faded fast, like it always did. Her body kept burning it off. Sober crept back in every time. "Same problem," she muffled. "Drink stops working. Then I gotta drink stronger." She had chased this for weeks. She wanted to be drunk forever, with no more mugs, no more refills. Just buzzed all the time, built right into her bones. But nobody knew how a person got there. So each new drink had to hit harder than the last. Beer, then whiskey, then the stuff that peeled paint. Now even that felt like water. A banjo twanged from the next table. She turned. It was the hillbilly banjo player who camped at the brewery most nights, the one who never paid for a drink and never left. Beside him sat his round friend, a harmonica pressed to his beard, cheeks puffing. "You lookin' rough, ma'am," the banjo player said. He plucked a string. "Chasin' the forever buzz again?" "Can't catch it," she said. "Body won't hold it." The harmonica player lowered his instrument. He pointed a thick finger at the beer waterfall. "You been sippin' cups," he said. "Cups run out. That there don't." Mrs. Falls a lot stared at the falling stream. Gallons a minute. It never stopped. She had never thought to drink the source itself. "You'd drown," the banjo player warned. He grinned anyway. "But it'd be a heck of a song." She pushed up from her chair. Her legs wobbled. She dropped both empty mugs and left them rolling on the boards. The waterfall roared closer as she walked. With a crack of her hips and a toot from her caboose, she silently smirked to herself “give it to me baby” She climbed the stone lip of the catch basin. Foam splashed her boots. The banjo player struck up a fast tune. The harmonica joined, wild and loud. Mrs. Falls a lot leaned forward and opened her mouth under the stream. Beer hit her like a fire hose. She gulped and gulped. No mug. No end. It poured straight down her throat, gallon after gallon. Warmth flooded her at last, deep and steady, the strongest hit she had ever felt. Then it kept coming. She couldn't stop. She couldn't step back. The stream held her pinned against the wall, filling her faster than she could swallow. Her belly swelled tight as a drum. The music turned to laughter behind her. She was finally drunk without a cup. But now she could not get free of the waterfall, and it would not shut off. Just before everything went black she noticed a squirrel with a beer, one she had never seen before, staring at her intently. Finally her world fades into oblivion as she hears the words “welcome to my world”