Time is moving slowly again. I can't sleep knowing she lies restless just across the path. The kitchen light has dimmed but the living room light is on. She's playing my music loud, the way it should be played. I turn away and try to burrow the back of my skull into the wall. I grind my skull helplessly into the wood. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." I want what I want and that's her.
As I open my eyes the music stops. I hate the silence more; she's forgotten me, abandoned me and moved on; like the rest, like all the rest.
Sad violin strings; the second CD track three, no two, no three. How could I forget the number of the track? These songs are my life, wafting out in the air. Some notes quaver slightly in the breeze. Should I go back? Knock on the door? Reach out and hold her body in my arms until the sun rises.
My hands are sore with wear. I see the fingers swollen and tender. These hands have pressed and plucked strings which have made people both happy and sad, these hands have brushed away a woman's fringe and held a new born baby as she cried. They have also tossed money at a lonely girl, tapped out a narcotic powder into a pure white trench and pressed on the tepid flesh of the murder victim's throat searching for a pulse.
I need that whisky. My world is in freefall and I don't have anything to numb the pain. My wrists itch again.
Who the hell wants to dance in the rain? In the real world only a freak who wears a cagoule. The rain is cold; it dribbles down the back of my collar as I contemplate the river below. I've made a decision, I can't jump off a bridge, where's the poetry in that? The chorus of 'Wait a while' blares from my phone; Mickey's inane grin peers back. "Not now mate." I whisper to the image. The phone beeps to confirm he's left a voice message.
I reluctantly listen to my voice mail. Mickey's coughing and laughing hysterically. I smile. We're old school drugs, predominantly coke and meth, washed down with copious amounts of alcohol. When I'm sane, which is both all of the time and none of the time, I think about what I'm actually doing and cringe. I don't get how people, how I, can be so stupid. There is a high and it's great but there's the down and it's awful leading to all sorts of dark stuff, but we still do it. I saw what it did to my mum and dad and I still did it, do it, no did it; it ends now.
Mickey is still giggling and there are no words, he's doing this to remind me how great it is when the high kicks in. There is no need to be sad because my happiness comes as pure white powder.
I write my best lyrics whilst not here, whilst being away from this world; the truth is I write my best work when I'm deep in the dark place and that's why it's difficult to give up; the darkness and loneliness and alienation it brings helps me to write. Sometimes what with the laughing and joking around and creativity both the light and the dark turn up the volume and make me a more interesting, better, 'me'.
It's a little like my thing about pens; the simpler the better. That's how I feel about this. I could buy a fancy knife, something oriental or backwoodsman, but this rather prosaic tin can lid will do. I hold the lid in between my thumb and forefinger and say goodbye to playing the guitar, to fingering Jenna and letting chocolate melt on my fingers. I press hard and move the blade.
It's not easy or painless, especially not fucking painless. My flesh jars and I try to do it quickly, but there is so much blood and it smells like my insides are now outside. The smell is warning me this isn't right, that I should stop; that insides stay in. They're, done. I stare down and the fact that I can see my life pouring out of me scares me - what a coward! Little Alicia was so much braver than me.
The staff at the hospital were kind, but someone told the press and the image of me trying to duck the paparazzi will probably go viral. Now I have a reputation as a narcissist, or a crazy guy. It's not cool to wear bandages on your wrists; I make sure my fans know that. I can't carry the weight of any more Alicias around on my perfectly angular shoulders.
YOU ARE READING
Forever Changed (Completed first draft for NaNoWriMo 2017)
General Fiction(This is a first draft of a novel written as part of NaNoWriMo throughout November 2017. The content will be added to and extended daily in November) Description: If somebody accidentally killed your husband, would you want him dead? Or as your sla...
