Addiction

"Like anyone who's a drinker knows, you borrow courage when you're drinking, and you lose it someplace else. Addiction is about credit. That amazing thing you said at the bar last night, that thing you would never say in person to anyone, it's a onetime occurence, because tomorrow, in the light of dawn,when you are separated from your wallet and your money, when your girlfriend hates you, then you'll be unable to say that courageous thing again, because you are wrung out and lying on a a mattress without sheets. You borrowed that courage, and it's gone."

The Albertine Notes, Rick Moody

A beautiful and utterly confusing sci-fi story, written very non-traditionally.. pick it up in Year's Best SF 9, at your National Library Branch today! Fiction, under YEA (for Year's!)