The road was wide, and long. I still had quite a way to walk. I heard footsteps approaching from behind me. I turned my head, and saw a man. He was tall and slim, reasonably well dressed, and seemed to be following his own direction. He was moving quite a lot faster than me. He probably hadn't had the night I'd had. I moved to the left, ready for him to overtake me.

He never did overtake me, though. Instead, he turned and stopped me in my path. "Hello," he began. "Where are you walking to?"

It wasn't a question I particularly wanted to answer. "Home," I finally responded. I hadn't wanted to be walking home. I'd wanted to stay exactly where I had been. I'd wanted to enjoy my drunken stupor until morning. But of course, drunken stupor has its downpoints. Walking home just before sunrise is often one of them.

"Where's home?" asked the walking man, a little too intrusively for my liking.

"Up there," I pointed vaguely.

"Would you like company on your walk?"

Now, I didn't want that kind of company. I'd had that kind of company, only moments earlier, and it had ended badly. Of course it had ended badly - I wouldn't have been walking alone down the main street if it had ended well. Shit, if it had ended well, it probably wouldn't have ended at all. So the last thing I wanted was some bizarre friendly stranger offering me anything. A marching band of supermodel intellectuals could have offerred me company and I would have waved them off. I wanted to be alone, truly alone. So alone I wasn't even going to waste my time talking stupidly. With alcoholic disregard, I simply said,

"No."

"It's going to be a lonely walk," he insisted.

It was time for the evasive manoeuvre. "No," I hissed. Then I walked. Onto the open road.

I had intended to cross the road, but a series of excavations and the spectacle of floodlighting stood in my path. Half the road had been dug up, and dozens of workers in day-glo vests were still there, working while the traffic was scarce. I could reach only as far as the median strip. That seemed good enough to me.

He kept to his side of the road, but he slackened his pace. He was looking over at me. I looked straight ahead. I walked along, and he maintained his position parallel to mine. Inevitably, I heard his voice.

"Hey!" he called.

I looked in his direction, summoning every dagger, knife, rapier, Curtana, Excalibur I could muster. He appeared a little taken aback.

"I feel I should tell you that walking along the middle of the road is dangerous," he said, sympathetically.

"I'm alright just here," I replied. I certainly felt safer.

I kept ahead, but after a few minutes, I heard a ute pull over. My erstwhile companion began to talk to the driver, and all of a sudden, he'd found his way into the passenger seat. He'd found company after all. The ute pulled away, and I quickly moved back to the side of the road. At the traffic lights, I stopped. So did the ute. The window opened, and my follower yelled,

"See? If you'd stayed with me, you'd be getting a lift home?"

I didn't have far to walk. I arrived, safely, alone. I woke up with a sore head, a spinning stomach, and a strange, new resolve.