The Night That Took It All

My friend used to drink hard and often along the South Coast. One night in Southampton it tipped beyond the edge. A late argument at a petrol station. Words that should have stayed as words. The attendant stepped into the forecourt to stop him driving away. I wasn't there to see the moment itself ' only the aftermath that followed it like a long shadow. My friend didn't come home that night. Neither did the man he struck. In the months that followed, I watched everything unravel from a distance. The job was gone first. Then the marriage. Then the slow disappearance of his name from polite conversations. Prison took the rest. I still think about how quickly a life can narrow to a single night. And how the damage keeps moving long after the sirens stop.