Extraterrestrials

Oliver’s Lounge is a small bar/club on the top floor of a small building otherwise filled with offices and, on the ground level, shops that open on to the street.  “Extraterrestrial” is vodka otherwise filled with Irish Cream and, on the ground level, melon liqueur.  Four is an integer.
Take one of those three things, multiply it by ten, and you get the number of minutes I had previously been at one of those other things.  Don’t multiply it by ten and you get the number of the third (remaining) thing that I had previously consumed.  If you can’t do the math, don’t worry: I couldn’t at that point either.
I had gotten off a pretty nasty day at work and headed to the top floor with Eric and Elaine, two colleagues with whom—before that night—I had not experienced anything particularly supernatural.  Granted, I could say that about any other colleague, or really any other human, but such is life.  At that time I was not thinking of phenomena for which my native culture has no explanations, good or otherwise.  I was thinking of Extraterrestrials.
So it was, as I round-a-boutly described earlier, that I became inebriated quite quickly, and indeed remained so for the next few hours at Oliver’s.  And thankfully so, because the music was terrible as usual.  Eric and Elaine (no relation) took the slow-and-steady route and were more pissed than I, I believe, by the time we decided to leave.  Since it was a hot summer night we (we = Eric) made the fateful decision to walk the mile to our apartments instead of taking a cab.  Full of fate it was.  The decision.
What would normally have been at most a twenty minute walk had already taken three times that by the time our trio reached the wooded area separating us from the subdivision containing the sprawling apartment complex in which we lived.  We had all had a chance to sober up some but were still very drunk.  Drunk enough to be way too loud while hushing ourselves and mocking a man we were inadvertently following.  He was asking to be mocked, though, wearing a long coat and beanie hat in July.
Well, we had managed to quiet to a swaggering snigger when, and I can swear to this despite the alcohol that was in my blood, the guy vanished.  Thin air.  Blink of an eye, you get it.  I took a few more steps, confounded, and noticed that my friends had stopped.  Turning, I saw horrified expressions on their faces, and Elaine was pointing to the spot where the man had been, her mouth agape.  I almost laughed at them when I remembered that someone had disappeared in front of us, and he could easily be sneaking up with the intent to tickle (the worst thing I could think of in my condition).
I swiveled around ineptly and stumbled on the longcoat the man had been wearing, now bunched on the ground.  When I recovered and looked up things were moving strangely and then I saw something move quickly and be still again.  I swore it was a tree.  I swore, at any rate.  Eric started shouting something about “grays” and he took off, I’m pretty sure in the wrong direction.  Elaine was yelling too, only normal things like “oh my god” and “what the hell is going on” over and over.
The trees all looked untrustworthy to me and I was trying to ignore Elaine and figure out which one had moved when I saw something to my left.  I felt like I was suddenly sober and wished that I weren’t.  What I saw looked like it was trying really hard to look like something, but it couldn’t decide what.  How many limbs, what color, height, width, etc., all seemed to be changing fluidly.  Now, I’ve hallucinated before (don’t get me wrong, I’ve been around the block) and I can declare this was not happening in my head.  But it had to be—my mind started to pick up on what Elaine was babble/screaming about, and she was seeing something different, with hair and claws and stuff.  And Eric had seen something gray?  This thing was real, but looked different to all of us.  Maybe she saw Bigfoot or a wookie or something and I saw… I have no idea what I saw.  At this point some tentacles were showing up and a hood ornament had manifested itself on the creature’s forehead.  It still had the beanie on.  What does that say about my brain?
At this point I promptly vomited on my shoes.  I blame the “Buick-squid,” but really it was probably a combination of fear, inebriation, and trying to think too hard.  Then I got a weird sensation of mischievous amusement and I think it came from it.  I certainly had no reason to be mischievously amused, and although that fact had historically never stopped me, I’m pretty sure it did then.
What followed was that a short, young-looking guy ran in, grabbed the thing’s coat off the ground and dragged the creature off, all with an unmistakable air of exasperation (well I say that, but nothing was unmistakable at that point).  Then I passed out.  I woke to Elaine shaking me (which didn’t help my headache), went home, slept fast and hard and was barely able to shower before work today.  Elaine and Eric haven’t shown up and I’m typing this up instead of working, which should go on record as the first productive thing I’ve done at this job…

I think I’ll go to Oliver’s when I get off.  No more Extraterrestrials though.

Gotta go, boss is coming!