"So I’m rewriting my novel." I tell her.

I’m sitting on the patio of a downtown Denver coffee shop with my friend and it’s either halfway to nine a.m. or half-past eight. The morning sky above us is a sea of clear blue but the sun is already halfway melting me.

"I was wondering what happened with that." She says.

My friend, I haven’t seen her in half a year, but called her this morning knowing that she would just be getting off working the night shift. Me, I’ve been awake for half a week and need a break from rewriting my book. I light a cigarette and wait for a crew of larks to quit singing.

"When I finished writing it a year ago," I say, half coherent and half not, "I realized it just wasn’t the work of art I envisioned when I began it." I pull a half-empty flask of brandy from my shorts pocket and pour generously into my half-warm cup of coffee. "I just wasn’t happy with the finished product."

"Take it easy on the booze, Tim." She says. "It’s only like, eight-thirty, chief."
I cap the flask, put it back in my pocket, and take a healthy pull from my half-smoked cigarette.

"Time is irrelevant," I say, waving her comment away with my left hand. "Do you have any idea," I say, mashing out the cigarette butt in an ashtray between us, "how long I’ve been awake?"

We’re not even halfway through our conversation and already she’s more-than-half annoyed with me. She’s staring at me sideways and the area between her eyebrows is half bunched together in confusion. She changes the subject.

"It’s been a while since I’ve seen you." She says. "You’ve lost weight."

Taking a couple swallows from my coffee and spilling half of it down my chin to my shirt, I say, "I wouldn’t necessarily say I’ve lost it, dude." I wipe my mouth and chin with the back of my right hand and light another cigarette. "But thanks. I guess."

"How have you been?" She asks. "What have you been doing?"

Looking through these fogged contact lenses, everything looks like it’s either surrounded by Saint Elmo’s fire or half-dipped in glaze.

"I’ve never been better," I say, and mean it. "I have a few weeks of downtime in-between semesters. Rewriting this book, my first book," I say, and light another cigarette, "the whole process has been…" and I’m waving my hands in a circular motion searching for an impressive word. What I find is: "Super."

"Great, Tim." She says, and she still has that strange look on her face. I nod my head at her, smiling. I’m either half-drunk or half sober, I’m not sure which. Either way, I’m half-something.

Half stupid and half dead. Half wasted and half waste. And my friend is much more attractive than I remember.