Waking up in strange places. Alcohol is my mistress; a temptation to which I often yield. As such many amusing stories begin with the admittance of inebriation. This story does not begin with booze as I remember little about the evening that preceded the events. Instead this story begins with waking up.

Often when hung-over it is wise to open one eye at a time. This cautionary tactic has several advantages. The brain is having enough trouble trying to understand why you have punished it with a dozen too many vodkas/whiskys/rums… The flood of information received by opening both eyes at once could cause the grey matter to overload. God knows what one might be looking at after a heavy night. There is the distinct possibility that one might not be alone and trying to work out where that girl/boy/stuffed monkey came from is just too much to cope with.

Opening one eye at a time allows the brain to slowly digest information a little at a time. On this dreadful morning I peeled open my left eye a fraction and waited for my brain to do its work. There was no one with me which I am usually grateful but where I was I had no idea. My brain decided that it needed to give more attention to my whereabouts. I’m fortunate in that despite the pain and suffering I inflict on my brain it still tries its best to look out for me. One day I’ll repay the favour.

I open my eye the rest of the way and glanced around. Robbie Williams stared back at me grinning like a maniac. My head spun. I looked away only to see another member of a boy band gazing at me, half naked and glossy faced. Everywhere I looked I could see posters of boy bands. Even the ceiling was covered with boyzone and Take That posters.

I closed my left eye and let the right have a go to see if it might do any better.

It was worse.

As it scanned the room trying not to make eye contact with better looking, non hung-over, healthy boy banders my brain became agitated. At first I thought that this was clearly due to the presence of manic grins and half naked male torsos but my right eyes could not find what it was searching for.

There was no way out.

My left eye was tagged in and snapped open. Team ‘Martin’s eyes’ was back and in full dynamic panic mode. Where the hell was the door?

Despite protests from my fragile body I sat up. Perhaps there was a door behind one of the posters I thought to myself. I knew as soon as the thought entered my head that this was nonsense. The poster weren’t that close together that they could cover an entire door.

I looked for other clues. There was a bedside cabinet next to me. It had a pink alarm clock and a couple of perfume tester bottles. A small bookshelf sat across from me full of Nancy Drew and Smash Hits magazines. A chest of drawers had some photos frames of people I didn’t know placed carefully on top of it. Above the drawers was a window. I fell toward it and peered outside across. The view was unfamiliar.

I was starting to panic. I placed my hands flat against the wall and began sliding them across the wallpaper and over the posters. Surely there was a door. How can I be in a room with no doors? I found nothing and slumped back onto the bed.

Maybe I was dead. Maybe I was dead and I was in some kind of purgatory or hell. Was I to suffer my sins in the form of a teenage girl’s bedroom? The walls were closing in on me bringing Robbie and his band mates ever closer. They were laughing at me now, grinning their naked grins at me. Maybe I could have been in a boy band. Maybe if I hadn’t drank or taken drugs and studied and looked after my health and went to the gym. Maybe I could have been half naked on the wall of a teenage girl’s room. Was I being taught a lesson? Was I being shown what could have been like some ghost from the future? I reached up to Robbie hoping that I might fall through the looking glass poster into a world of success and fortune but he didn’t take my hand. I was alone and hung-over and probably dead in the bedroom of a teenage girl.

I’m not sure what sound I made. It was perhaps a cross between a sob, a lamenting whine but when I heard a reply I felt the flicker of hope.

‘Martin?’ the voice said. It was a girl’s voice, an angelic voice; the voice of my saviour. ‘Are you ok?’

‘Help me,’ I cried. ‘Where am I?’

I heard laughing. There was more than one angel. Were they coming to lead me from this place into Heaven ?

I heard movement and my brain finally decided to start working. The voices were coming from beneath me. There was a sound of scraping metal and then footsteps rising up toward me. I watched terrified as the stripy rug that had sat in the middle of the floor rose up on its own as if coming to life. Was my angel appearing in the form of a stripy rug?

The rug fell away and my friend Sarah stood before me the lower half of her body missing.

‘Sorry, we had to put the ladders away as people couldn’t get to the toilet.’ I stared down the hole in the floor to see ladders leading into a hallway. ‘This is my wee sister’s room. It was the only bed free. You were pretty drunk.’

‘I thought I was dead,’ I muttered. She looked at me funny and let me follow her down the ladder.

As I left I took a final glance at room wondering if when I did finally pass on from this world was there something like this waiting for me. Should I take this as a sign that I should change my drinking ways and become more like those healthy and handsome specimens adorning the walls. Robbie beamed at me as left. Sarah held out a beer. ‘Hair of the dog?’

‘Yes fucking please.’