Saturday Night and it's Aftermath

So hungover I managed to finally get out of bed at 6:20pm. The whole day spent in bed, drifting into headache-dreams and wondering if I was going to throw up. Never known a headache like it, and I hadn't had that much to drink last night. Not that I remember anyway.
It's 7:30pm, and twilight is here, but to me it feels like morning, like I should be having breakfast. Instead of waiting for baked potatoes to cook. I should be having porridge, but seeing as I had garlic bread for yesterday's breakfast, who knows.
So, last night.
Andy and me caught the taxi to the Heart and Hand in Kemptown, soon joined by Al and Claire. After a pint there we headed off to some pub that may or may not have been called The Black Dove. The Black Dove was incredibly packed. There was some kind of raucous folk band playing - Patch and the Giant? - and it felt like there was some kind of bank holiday festival on.
We then headed up into the heights of Hanover. Found some pub which might have been called The Last Sunset. Or something similar. It was empty. Brightly lit rooms and a solitary barmaid. There was an outside area round the back, where you could look all over Brighton. I couldn't quite work out where we were. Brighton sinking into a strange and new night. Al pointed out that the toilet there (painted a uniform green) had a softened, haunted quality. December afternoons and grey days. 3:30pm as a prelude to twilight. That old line, the eeriest part of a winters day.
Our last pub of the night was The Worlds End on London Road. Another empty place. Al and Claire played pool badly, and Al and me played darts even worse (we broke two of the darts),.
Last orders, the walk home.
We ended up exploring some new (to us anyway) path that led up to the viaduct near Sevendials. This was the place where Joe and myself had got to way back in summer 2004 or 2005. Back then it had been a building sit (the new Sainsburys) and we had spent a rainy hour or two lugging ladders about and climbing fences, eventually ending up in some strange wasteground where a solitary chair stood, as if waiting for us.
It was all different now, and there was an actual footpath that led between railway buildings and was brightly lit by lamps. Bushes, trees. Plenty of shadows. Be worth walking the whole of the path in some future. Just some short-cut, a twilight-tear.
After saying goodbye to Al and Claire, Andy and me ended up buying some fast food (a burger for Andy and a chicken shawarma for me). We headed down the seafront to eat it. I managed to spill most of mine on the ground. Annoyed.
Long empty beach walk home.
Finally got back, I went to my room, collapsed into the bed I have only really just got out of.
When I get up Andy tells me that someone was shot dead down Church Road last night - fifteen minutes away from here. Looking at the news, the police don't think it was gang related. Happened about 11:00pm. Any other night I might have been walking home at that time.
Hope those baked potatoes finish soon. I'm starving.