Book Excerpt 2

Everything is so fucked up at the moment I am not sure what reality is.  I’m wrapped in cotton wool.  The only thing in my life that matters is getting drink and going to the chemist.  I’ve been to every chemist in the town and they seem to be getting a bit suspicious.  I can’t do without the codeine at the moment though.  I think I’ve hurt my leg.  The pain in the morning is unbearable.  The only way to get rid of it is to drink.  Not that it is the only reason I drink, I drink because I need it.

My body feels ruined.  I know I am unhealthy, there’s something not right but I am not sure what it is.  I can barely piss, my skin looks tanned and I keep getting pains in my chest, sometimes down my arms.  For some sick reason though I enjoy it, it’s symbolic of how fucked up I’ve become.  I don’t really care anymore.  I don’t see anything to live for.  Honestly, what’s the point?  The only thing I want to do now is to get as fucked as possible and last as long as I possibly can.  I doubt I’ll see 30 but I’m good with that.  I’ve enjoyed life haven’t I?

Sitting on the sofa I’m watching the clock.  I always seem to be watching the fucking clock.  Unless I am fucked, but the clock doesn’t matter when I’m fucked, time is an irrelevance, it’s all one big blur, one big dream, one big trip.  Imaginary places, imaginary slights, imaginary grudges, imaginary hate.  There’s no distinguishing between what’s real and what exists in my head.  The reality is what you don’t want to face, there’s too much fear involved, too much trouble.  At the moment the only thing I want is my comfort blanket.

I am not sick at the moment.  I still had some left from last night.  I feel just about right.  That’s the fucked up thing.  When I have nothing I am so ill I can’t walk.  Vomiting, shaking, death is imminent.  When I’ve had too much I don’t know what it is happening.  I am away in a different world, a world that is far safer than the one I exist in right now.  When I’ve had just enough I’m normal.  I get hungry, I feel the cold or the warmth of the day, I fucking feel.  The tears run down my face.  It’s a release.  A release from what I don’t know but they need to flow.

I see that the time has passed, the shop is open now.  I am okay for the moment though.  I don’t need to go straight away.  I am in control here.  This time you’re not forcing me to get there in your time, it can be my own fucking time.  I listen to the birds, their noise is soothing as the sky turns pinkish.  Their lives seem so much simpler than ours.  They wake up in the morning, they look for food and then sit in their nests.  They’ll never be offered the option to take another road.

We have choices, choices that branch out into different roads different destinations.  Can you go back down the road though?  I am not sure I can.  I am not sure anyone can.  If I go back down the road I will have to face everything, face everyone.  That’s a long fucking road, a road I don’t know how to walk.  I am a kid.  I might be 23 but I don’t know how to feel, I don’t know what emotion is.  I just know how to cry.  Crying is the only way it all comes out.  You can say I waste my life, but who the fuck are you?  You’ve not walked this road.

I know there are seeds there.  I know that there is just the slight thought that maybe this isn’t what I want.  Maybe I am doubting that this is the road that I want to take.  I’ve tried before.  Sitting in rooms full of people talking bollocks.  Talking about how they’re the worst, no one is worse than them.  They say you can relate.  The only thing I can relate to is the need to cling on and not let go of this life.  Let go of this and what do I have?

They say it’s the only way.  If it is the only way then I am well and truly fucked because I am not doing it that way.  If I keep on, how long will I have left?  The doctor reckons a couple of years but I think he’s only saying that to scare me.  I know I am unhealthy but 23?  No chance, I’ve got until I am 30 at least.  The problem is if I die, I can’t get fucked and that’s a problem.  Dying is not the problem.  Not being able to get fucked is the biggest problem.

The sun is shining in onto the sofa and I can feel the warmth on my skin.  The last couple of drops of cider are left in the bottle.  I pour them out into my glass, the chemical smell making me gag.  I put the glass back down, I’ll finish it just before I go to the shop.  I drift off to thinking about places I could go to.  I wish I could go off to Asia.  Smoke drugs, drink and no one would give a fuck.  That’s what I could do.  Thing is I don’t have any money.  I don’t have anything.

Time to go.  Time for the morning ritual, today it’s a bit later though, I am in control.  Walking down the road it isn’t all so fuzzy.  I can walk properly.  Usually I can’t walk properly because all my motor skills have gone.  One step is difficult.  The fear of death isn’t present today either.  I know it isn’t quite imminent.  I have confidence in my walk, I don’t fear that everyone is out to get me.

The one person that never judges me is the lady in the off license.  She doesn’t look at me with pity, she doesn’t look at me disparagingly.  She treats me like a normal person no matter what state I am in.  This morning she smiles and asks how I am.  I’m fine.  She hands over my tobacco and vodka. “Take care of yourself, darling” she says with a big smile on her face.  It’s one of the few comforting faces I see.  No judgement.

As I walk back towards home I take the long way around.  I am enjoying this relative freedom.  Perhaps this reality isn’t all that bad.  There are slight shivers down my back but not enough for the fear to set in, not enough that I have to rush home, not enough that I have to drink out of the bottle as soon as I am outside the shop.  I can take my time.

As I walk a fear overtakes me.  Not the usual fear.  A fear that I am wasting everything.  What kind of life is this?  This walk, a 20 minute walk around this shitty little town is the only bit of freedom that I have.  I don’t even know when I am going to be able to have this freedom again.  It’s not every day I wake up with drink left.  When I am off the drink there is no freedom.  It still consumes my life.  I am just waiting for the right time to go back to it.  Maybe leaving it for a few days longer just to spite myself and to spite the thing that has this ever reaching control over me.

It takes over my dreams.  It takes over my whole fucking life.  There is no escape from it, yet I feel as though I don’t want it any other way. It is my escape from the world, but there is no escape from its world.  This is what people don’t understand.  You can’t just walk away from it.  Without it there is no world, there is only a reality that is distorted.  It’s not the reality that you know.  But then you don’t even know what the fuck reality is.  It’s been lost, all there is a haze, a fog of occurrences, things that happen but they don’t seem to have any sense of being connected.

I come out of my day dream as the philosophical psychobabble bullshit is confusing me.  I have no idea what I am thinking about.  I can’t even express myself to myself in my own fucking mind.  If I can’t express myself to myself how the fuck am I supposed to express myself to someone else.  I laugh.  I’m bordering on an insanity that I can’t escape.  Perhaps insanity will be a lot easier than being able to have to think coherently.

I put the bottle on the table and stare at it.  I sit back in the sofa.  I’ll leave it for 20 minutes.  It’s all a big contradiction.  Me not drinking it is my form of control, but if it wasn’t in control I wouldn’t have to try and control it.  I open the bottle and pour neat vodka in to the glass.  It goes down my throat in one go.  The burning feels nice.  My head clears of all thoughts.  For today it’s just going to be me and my bottle and that’s how I want it.  No need to worry about what’s going to happen in the future.

This is another excerpt taken from my book.  The book will be released in early August this year.