A Tale of Early Morning Woes, or, The Drunk Fairy (a true story)

Disclaimer: The story you are about to read is a true account of recent events.
Names have been changed to protect the privacy of all involved.

It was the loud clang that roused Charity from her deep slumber; the first followed by a second, third and fourth in short succession.

She didn’t ask herself what the noise was nor who created it. Nor did she necessarily feel the need to glance at the clock by her bed. She already knew the time, the culprit and the cause.

‘Tinks is home. Tipsy. Must be 3am.’ She groaned.

Her neighbour, Tinkerbell, had only recently moved into number 8, but since her arrival less than six months earlier, she’d made her presence known not just to Charity, her immediate neighbour in number 9, but to all the surrounding apartments as well.

Tinkerbell’s frequent, early-morning homecomings were typically heralded by her incessant babble, her stomping up stairs, her slamming of doors, and her constant natter once inside – all amplified by the quiet stillness of the early morning hours. Disgruntled rumblings had already spread amongst the neighbours, multiple complaints of interrupted sleep had been made and ongoing outrage at the sheer lack of consideration brewed beneath the surface; aspersions were cast against a whole generation based on the behaviour of this one exemplar. The general peace hung in the balance.

Conscious but not fully awake, Charity refused to allow the disturbance to get the better of her this time. Trying her best to ignore the clatter, hoping against hope the girl would soon get herself inside and to bed quickly and quietly, Charity lay patiently still, willing sleep not to abandon her entirely.

From the ongoing clamour occurring just meters away, Charity formed a mental image of what was happening.

Tinks had stumbled her way to her apartment, opened the security screen, and was trying to unlock her front door. Unsteady on her feet and unable to focus on getting the key in the slot, Tinks kept leaning against the screen causing it to slam repeatedly against the metal handrail. This sent reverberations along the rail, through the building and into the skulls of its inhabitants, who had surely all been awoken by now.

‘Any second now, she’ll open the damn door and let it slam behind her.’Charity mused.

She waited on edge for her prediction to be realised, certain she’d be able to fall back to sleep if only Tinks would get inside soon.

But, alas, the screen kept crashing against the rail and the loud clanging continued on and on.

‘I’m ignoring it, I’m ignoring it, I can do it, I can fall back to sleep…c’mon Tinks, open the effing door...’

Suddenly, there was a loud bang. And then another and another.

‘What the…?!’

The banging and the clanging continued in synchronicity for a full minute before it dawned on Charity.

‘Oh god! She’s locked herself out!’

Tinkerbell, she was guessing, had locked herself out and her solution was to try to kick her door down. But in her drunken unsteady state, she was going nowhere.

Charity’s phone lit up then. It was Prudence from number 2, downstairs.

- WTF?! Is someone trying to break in?! I’m calling the police!!

- It’s Tinks, I think she’s locked herself out and is trying to kick the door down.

- FFS!!! Is she drunk?!

- No doubt.

At that moment, Charity heard Tinks speaking (or trying to).

“I live here. It’s my apartment. I live here.” She slurred.

Charity’s ears pricked, ‘Who’s she speaking to?!’

She heard a low muttering and then a door close. It sounded like Hope from number 10 had tried to intervene but was disheartened by the hopelessness of the situation, retreating to the comfort of her bed.

Unperturbed by the attempted intervention, Tinks resumed pounding at her door and banging the screen against the railing.

‘This is futile,’ thought Charity, both of her drunken neighbour’s attempts at entering her apartment, and of her hope of falling back to sleep.

After what felt like an eternity, to Charity’s relief, the pounding and clanging stopped. But even as she was starting to form a mental sigh of relief, a new, meeker sound made its way to Charity’s ears.

The sound of Tinkerbell’s defeated weeping wafted into her bedroom, finally ridding Charity of any last vestiges of drowsiness.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’

It was now well past 3:30 in the morning. Charity knew that Tinks’ situation was a lost cause – she was locked out and too drunk to think of what else to do; even on a good day, Charity had doubts as to Tinks’ ability to effectively problem-solve.

Despite all her attempts at resisting the notion, Charity realised she had to do something.

‘I can’t leave her out there.’

And though she really, really didn’t want to, Charity got out of bed and went to her door.

‘Maybe she can sleep on my couch until the morning,’ she thought as she reluctantly opened her door and leaned out.

There was Tinks, leaning against her door, her hand still on the round doorknob, weeping.

‘Her hair is pink,’ was Charity’s first thought as she realised she’d never really seen Tinks before now – heard her, yes, many times, but never actually clocked eyes on her. ‘Of course her hair is pink.’

“Hey! Hey!” Charity whisper-yelled.

The distance between the two front doors was less than five meters, so a whisper-yell was more than adequate at that time of the morning. And, indeed, Tinks slowly turned her head towards Charity.

“Have you locked yourself out?”

“There’s a system for getting in but I can’t work it out.” Tinks whined, not in a whisper nor coherently.

‘A system?’ thought Charity, ‘like a lock and key, perhaps?’

The girl was clearly intoxicated. Charity tried to wave her over.

“C’mon, come here. You can’t stay there all night, darling.”

“But there’s a system.”

‘Maybe something is wrong?’ Charity questioned herself now, accepting that no one could be THAT dim, ‘maybe her key is jamming like it did for Prudence recently?’

Realising that there was a possibility she had been a little unkind – albeit understandably – towards Tinks, Charity slid on a pair of shoes and stepped outside.

Gingerly walking towards Tinks and her door, arms slightly raised in a there-there-everything-is-ok-I’m-here-to-help kind of fashion (Lord knows she didn’t want to spook the girl!), Charity focused her attention on the door handle and deadlock to work out whether there was a key visible. None were.

Now standing beside Tinkerbell, who was quite a tall young lady – with an appalling sense of style it has to be added – Charity asked again in hushed tones.

“Are you having trouble unlocking your door?”

Swaying backwards and slamming the screen against the rail again, Tinks replied.

“There’s a system but I can’t open it. My partner…I tried to call…can’t… inside…(incoherent mumblings)…open it.”

“Sshh, sshh, speak softly. And don’t bang the screen.”

“Sorry.” Tinks tried to steady herself.

“Your boyfriend is inside?”

“…yea…no…tried to call…”

Charity found this really hard to believe. No one on this planet could have slept through the racket the girl had been making for the last half hour. Maybe she had been trying to call her boyfriend to come and help her? The kid was probably somewhere far away, fast asleep in quiet contentment – lucky guy!

Seeing that there was no key in either of the two available locks, Charity asked what she knew to be the dumbest question under the circumstances, but given the situation and the subject before her, she thought, what the heck?

“Do you have your key?”

Unbelievably, Tinks slowly and wobbly turned her head and nodded towards the handbag she had discarded on the ground behind her.

“I think there’s something in there.”

Charity was flabbergasted! She bent down and lifted the bag.

“Do you mind if I have a look through your bag?”

“No.”

One by one Charity began removing the contents of the bag, not wanting to risk missing a single item.

‘If you didn’t know the age of this girl, looking through her bag would be a dead give away.’ Charity thought to herself.

Out came a deodorant aerosol can, a phone headset, a lipgloss, two perfume bottles, another lipgloss, and a handful of crumpled receipts.

‘This is not looking promising,’ thought Charity, trying to remain positive while realising the bag was nearing empty.

Feeling around further, her hand landed what appeared to be the last item in the bag. It was large and round and furry. Deflated, Charity slowly pulled it out, aware it couldn’t possibly be the prize she had hoped for, when, miracle of all miracles, she saw that hanging off the end of it was a silver key.

“Is this it?” She asked Tinks.

“…mmmm…” Tinks nodded.

Charity got up and moved towards the door, her gaze – along with Tinks’ – fixated on the small shiny object.

As if in slow motion and watching from a detached position, Charity slid the key into the deadlock, held her breath, and turned it. A satisfying click was heard and the door opened.

Charity was speechless.

She stepped aside to let Tinks enter her apartment.

“Don’t slam the door!” She said.

With Tinks safely inside, Charity bent down to restore the loose contents of her handbag back into their place. Handing it back to Tinks, she said,

“Go to bed now.”

Charity turned and as she walked back towards her own front door she heard – not without some satisfaction – the door of number 8 quietly click closed behind her.

THE END