Mama said don't talk to strangers

Socialising at university is an odd thing. Especially if you’re at res. House Comm likes forcing friendships. A common scheme was organising braais. Simply, we went over to other residences and had a braai, drank some punch, and played 30 Seconds. All in all, a pleasant evening for most. Well, except for my friends and I, who are an awkward bunch. We normally went for the food and ducked out after a couple drinks.

In my second year such an event occurred. Oriel girls did the long trek to Winchester, a boy’s residence across campus. The evening started off with the same pattern. We walked in slowly, nodded to the girls we knew, and found a spot outside to claim for the night. This is how we met Raihaan.

Raihaan was a first year, an extroverted guy who plopped down next to us and struck up conversation. The whole night he was trying to talk himself up to Myticia while the rest of us snickered in the background. The food came and went and when the 30 Seconds board came out my friends and I ducked out. With a little addition to our gang.

“I’m heading to 37,” Raihaan said, hopping onto the road next to Myticia. “Mind if I tag along for pre-drinks?”

We walked ahead of them.

“Why is he following us?”

“He’s trying to get with Myticia.”

“Should we give them some space?”

“Myticia is too awkward for this.”

We trekked back to Oriel and left the pair outside by the bench, with a wide eyed Myticia begging us not to leave.

“Are we bad friends?”

“We’ll be two minutes, she’ll be fine.”

Racing up to Tshiamo’s room I barged in and flopped myself onto her body.

“Come on, we wanna go to the Annexe.” I said leaning my head on her arm and watching the Rick and Morty episode playing on her laptop.

“Fine but you have to get off of me first.” She said sitting up.

“But I’m comfy.”

“Kylie,” Mirren called walking passed Tshiamo’s door. “Myticia is by herself, hurry up.” Jumping up I grabbed the pack of drinks from my room and raced down the steps.

Tshiamo followed, wrapped up in her blue gown, a pack of smokes in one hand and a speaker in the other.

We made our way to the Annexe, a small house across the road that fell under the Oriel house name and

plopped ourselves down onto the single bench on the side of the house.

Tshiamo sat on the edge with Raihaan on the other end. Myticia sat next to him and Mirren next to her. Megan and I stood, laughing at Tshiamo’s pickiness when choosing a song to play.

“I have the perfect song, just be patient damn.” She huffed, and soon enough Kanye was blaring through Mirren’s speaker.

We sat there drinking for a little while, Raihaan going harder than we were, each chug ending with a smirk aimed at Myticia, who wasn’t even paying attention to him. Poor kid.

After downing another drink Raihaan played on his phone for a bit, his presence fading into the background as we got into a debate about what our mixed-tape would be called. Once we settled on ‘Feta-cheeses’ (in relation to fetishes) Myticia’s attention was brought back to the body next to her.

All of a sudden Raihaan’s heavy head rolled from the right to the left, right into Myticia’s space. Getting a fright from the sudden proximity Myticia jumped up with a shriek and stepped next to me. It was like a chain reaction, Myticia jumped up, freaking Mirren out, who jumped up and caused Tshiamo to follow suit. Soon five pairs of eyes watched as Raihaan’s body slowly melted off the bench, coming to a slumped form on the ground, his mouth wide open and lip jutted out.

“Oh my god.”

“Is he okay?” We all freaked out and looked at each other eyes wide and panicked. A loud mumbled broke us out of our heavy panicked state as Raihaan sneezed.

“Okay he’s alive.” I breathed out and put my hands on my knees. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know.” Myticia shrugged. “He said he smoked before coming with us, maybe the combination was too much?”

“Lol and he said he was going to go hard at 37.” Mirren snorted.

“Shit there’s Hi-tech.” All of our heads turned to the left and we saw a guard doing her rounds, making her way towards us.

“Shit shit shit.” I looked around. “Okay, we need to get him off the ground.”

Mirren and Tshiamo immediately bent down. “We’re going to go hide the alcohol.” They said running off into the annexe.

Megan and Myticia went to grab Raihaan. Draping an arm around either shoulder the two of them tried to lift him.

“Damnit he’s so heavy.” Megan grumbled, her legs shaking with the strain.

You see, Megan and Myticia are the smallest girls in the group. Instead of helping I stood watching the two of them trying to lift his dead weight, laughing as they struggled.

As the Hi-tech guard walked passed Myticia let out a very trying-to-be-causal-but-failing: “Pre-drinks ay.”

That didn’t help my laughter.

As soon as the guard walked passed without so much as a glance Myticia and Megan tried to lift him once more, only to have Raihaan rip one so hard that I’m sure the ground shook a little.

Dropping him with a thud Megan and Myticia stood back with a scowl.

“That was fucking disgusting.”

Tshiamo and Mirren joined back and watched the retreating back of the guard.

“Where’d you guys put the alcohol?”

“Shame,” Tshiamo laughed. “We kinda just shoved it into this first year’s room. She was very confused.”

“Did the Hi-Tech guard ask anything?” Mirren inquired, eyeing as Raihaan slumped ever further down, his face inching closer to the dirt.

“Nope, just walked passed.” Inching towards him my paranoia won out and I checked for a pulse, only to have him burp in my face. I scrunched up my face and waved the smell of brandy and chops out of my face.

“We really need to get him sitting up.”

“Okay,” I said walking up to him. “Let me try.”

This guy was not easy to lift. I got him halfway up before his cell phone began to ring.

Now, this guy had not woken up after slumping to the ground, lifted, and being dropped back face first to the dirt.

But did this boy not wake up for his damn cell phone.

With perfect cognitive movement he took his phone out of his front pocket and declined the call before promptly passing out again.

“No!” I cried dropping him again and clutching my face.

“Did he just fucking wake up to pass out again?”

Wrapping my arms around his waist I heaved but there was no hope. I held him a little up and bent my knees. “I can’t go any further.”

That’s when Kopano showed up.

Walking up the street Kopano looked at us and did a double take. Rushing towards us she asked: “Is she okay?”

“Uh,” We swallowed at our house comm member. “It’s a he. From Winchester.”

“Oh,” She blinked and shrugged. “That’s alright then. What happened?”

We all breathed a sigh of relief and I dropped him again, hands on my hips.

“He just kinda… passed out. He drank too much too quickly.”

“We’ve been trying to wake him up for the past ten minutes.”

“He farted on Myticia and Megan.”

Kopano snickered and rubbed her forehead. “Is there anyone we can call?”

“Wait didn’t his friend add us on Facebook before he left the braai?”

“Yeah he did! We should message him, maybe he can come fetch him.”

In our rush all five of us took out our phones and messaged him, each message basically saying: Your friend is passed out and we don’t know what to do. Come get him please.

We are not allowed to be adults, we are children with drinking permits.

“So he just… passed out?” Kopano asked once it was confirmed his friend was on his way.

We shrugged, and I nudged his slumbering body with my foot. “Yep, out cold.”

We were quiet for a bit before Kopano smiled evilly. “You guys want a photo?”

“Yes.” We laughed and crowed around him, our smiles far too gleeful.

As Kopano clicked and the flash shone and shook her head. “These first years man.”

“Weak livers.” We laughed and that’s when Jason walked up.

“Raihaan.” He said and rubbed his face. “He always does this.” He apologised and, in one swift motion, pulled Raihaan up to his feet and pushed him a little, getting him to walk.

“That’s all it took?” I asked indignantly, personally offended.

“Come on man,” Jason said slapping Raihaan’s back. “Time for bed.”

“I’ll drive you guys back.” Mirren offered. As they clambered into Mirren’s car, Jason placed Raihaan’s head to hang out the window.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t throw up in the car.”

That night, when Mirren got back we all laughed at what had happened. Raihaan’s body slowly oozing off the bench, before slumping face first into the ground, making us chuckle for the rest of the night.

And if anyone is worried, Raihaan woke up the next morning strong as ever. Even texting Myticia a very casual guess those pre-drinks hit harder than I thought, anyway- wanna get coffee sometime?

We never saw Raihaan again.