Silent Night

HE woke up. But very slowly, very cautiously. There was no movement. Even his eyes didn't really open. He was staying as far back in his subconscious as he could, for as long as he could, reluctant to face whatever it was that would be there when he did open his eyes. His drunken, sleep-drugged brain was badly muddled. But one part of it, that sly, cunning section of the gray cells so highly developed in the habitual drunk, was trying to marshall its poor defenses against this new, but by now familiar, 'crisis.'