psychedelia | phan

1: Get Me Out Of My Head

My fingers and toes are cold. That's the first feelings that I register when I open my puffy eyes to a dark London sky, filled with angsty grey clouds that ruin the aesthetically pleasing night skyline. The second thing I realise is that I'm lying face down on the pavement in a pool of vomit.

Jesus Christ.

I slowly, and painfully, sit up on my aching legs and feet that burn with the cold. With shaking hands, I pull my iPhone out from my heavy black coat pocket and press the home button to see the time. Of course, being my luck, the phone is completely drained of battery and that means I don't know where I am, what time it is, what day it is, or how long I've been unconscious on the footpath.

"Fuck," I say to myself under my breath, which causes a man passing by me to stare at me strangely. I take no notice of him, and try to stand up on my numb feet. The last thing that I can remember is walking the quiet streets of London at night with a few pills in my pocket that I must have taken, though I can't seem to remember what they were, or the quantity, or even taking them for that matter. This isn't good. I silently hope that it's still Wednesday night and Phil is asleep at home and is totally oblivious of my whereabouts.

"Dan Howell?" I hear a voice behind me squeak, and I feel my heart sink. I'm in no state to meet people who watch my YouTube videos, and I honestly don't want them to see how fucked up I am right now. My clothes smell pungent and there's a sick stain on my left arm. I take a deep breath and turn around, plastering the smile I'm now used to gluing to my face at this stage.  It's a young girl of about fifteen or sixteen with a brown paper bag in one hand, and a suspicious looking cigarette in the other. I can almost feel the nicotine entering my bloodstream through the air and my lungs ache for a cigarette.

"Hi," I smile cheerfully, but am careful to not show her my left side. The girl takes a long drag of her cigarette. My fingers itch to pull out the box of Marlboro's in my coat pocket. Her face lights up like the end of her cigarette.

"Oh my gosh," she whispers like someone could be listening in to our conversation. "Are you alright? You look rough."

Crap. I silently pray that she's just a casual viewer in the Phandom and not a fangirl with twenty thousand followers on her Tumblr blog, ready to tell the world that I look like shit. And probably smell like shit, too.

"I'm fine," I lie. "Would you like a picture or something?"

I hate asking her if she'd like a photo with me as it makes me sound like a pompous, self-important asshole, but genuinely I just need to get home and get out of this bloody conversation pronto.

The girl nods, passing me her phone. I "accidentally" hit the home button to see what date and time it is. I thank every deity that I don't believe in when I see that it is the same night and it's in he early hours of Thursday morning and I was only unconscious for two hours. Which maybe sounds like a long time, but at least it's still the same night. "And can you sign this for me? My name is Sam."

I quickly scribble some jumbled words into the back of her cigarette box and snap a photo of me with Sam, and she leaves. Thank fuck. I realise how disgusting I look in that photo and I hope that it won't be all over Tumblr in the morning. I don't want anyone to see me in this state.

After little over twenty minutes, I manage to find an underground station. In the station I see small huddles of homeless people lying by the walls of the train station. I stagger towards a board with a map and try to see where I am. Then, I notice a clock above my head and it reads 4:30am. Judging by the map, me and Phil's apartment is only ten minutes away. That is, if I don't get fucking lost.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love my job and life as a YouTuber. I love that I live with my best friend who I met online six years ago. I love that there are people in the world who like watching my videos and say I have helped them through dark times. I'm not ungrateful.

I'm just tired.

I'm tired of feeling empty and lost within myself, and feeling like nothing I ever say or do will ever have any worth or meaning. I'm sick of feeling like a burden and in the way all of the time. And I guess that's the problem. I just can't make myself care about the smallest of things anymore. And I'm not a drug addict. I'm not addicted to the small white pills I sometimes take when my heart begins to bleed. Sometimes, though, they're my only source of happiness.

But what about Phil? I love Phil more than I will ever love myself. And that's the problem. I'm scared of losing the one person who can make me smile even when the pressure of the world is making it hard to breathe. I love him, and it's my stupid fear of hurting him that's causing me to distance myself from him. I hate myself for it.

Outside our apartment door, I fumble for my keys for five minutes, and when I find them I slot them into the door and enter the flat. The door clicks shut softly and I blink rapidly as my eyes adjust to the blackness of the hall.

The apartment is deathly silent and I feel like very breath I take is going to wake Phil up, and I don't want him to see me like this. I don't want him to be disappointed by the fact that I've been taking drugs. In the back of my mind, I can see Phil's face and my eyes well with tears. I need to get cleaned up.

I walk up the steps and through the hall, watching my shadows dance on the grey walls that are scarred from dragging filming equipment from our bedrooms to the lounge and back again. I keep my arms outstretched so I can feel my way to my bedroom in the dark. I don't want to switch on a light in case I wake Phil. I feel so ashamed.

But it's been like this for weeks. Most nights, after Phil has gone to sleep and the sky is only illuminated by the silver moon and glimmering stars, I creep out of the house with my set of keys, a rain jacket and a pocket full of crap. The crap generally consists of a box of cigarettes and some loose pills. I don't know why, but I feel like the night time is the only time where I can be alone with my fucked-up head in the darkness. It's not that I don't like Phil's company; Phil is everything to me. I'd take a bullet for him. But sometimes, I just like to recede into the dark corridors of my mind and wander the midnight streets where I can let go of the world and make everything stop.

My fingers feel the shock of the cold metal of the doorknob of my bedroom, and I push the door inwards. I wince as it creaks on its hinges. My room is cool and dim, and I can barely make out the silhouette of my bed in the blackness of the bedroom.

As I throw off my raincoat and boots and stumble into bed, I let my eyes slide shut to the steady sound of Phil's soft snoring through the walls.

And the feeling of betrayal gnawing at my heart.