deathpoet's blog: "Gritty Chronicles"

"Wet.

I toss and turn in this damn uncomfortable bed.  I'll never sleep.  Everything is damp, the sheets, the blankets, me.  The window's open but it brings no relief.  The cars still prowling through these urban streets belching their exhaust and spitting up the dirtied rain carried on the wind it drifts in like a toxic morning dew, gritty vapor.

I sit up and light a cigarette.  Coughing wheeze, damn I hate these things; but hey, they're just another med in a long litany of chemicals.  Head spinning in flurry and rush of ideas.  It's hot, summer's on the way.  I feel like I'm choking.  Can't breath through my nose it's blocked.  Damn humidity, damn gritty air.

I look around this cell, my room.  No point in leaving it, i know beyond my door the rest of the aprtment's empty.  Someone was here, but who?  Marge?  Mable?  Mary?  I don't remember, I'll settle for Marge.  I can't quite make out her face, so I make one up, not too pretty.  The kind of face that had been pretty but worn away from too many broken promises and tears.  I give her kind eyes.

'It's never going to change!' I hear her sob.  But when was that? Today, yesterday, a thousand yesterdays?  Maybe it never was.  Maybe I only dreamed that.

I crush the cigarette out and reach for another.  Pack's empty.

I lift myself from the bed.  I guess I'm going out in the rain.  I try not to look at the apartment; I'm confused enough.  I don't need anymore qustions, questions make my head hurt.  I notice my clothes are dirty, greasy stains like a violent road map are spread across my beater and jeans, but I have nothing to change into.  I grab a long wool coat from the closet.  It's too hot for this, but I don't need any extra attention, don't want to terrify any honest folks I may bump into, I'm feeling all too hideous, though most of my scars are on the inside.  Who am I kidding, there's no honest folks around here.  I want them all to be scared; a big freak in a winter's coat on a hot spring night, they'll leave me be.

The three flights down to the street pass quietly and i pause before I open the building door.  I know what's out there.  Noise, lights, the vermin that pass for neighbors all scrambling along the gritty streets, sucking down the noxious fumes that pass for air.  My head is aching.  I think there was a pill I was supposed to take, I don't remember.  Somewhere in the back of my mind some cheap hack is explaining which meds do what, but I never really paid attention; I think that was something Marge took care of.

Steeling myself, I swing the door open and the night slams into me like I knew it would, the grittiness on my face like a swarm of gnats.

'Hey, Bob' a weasley voice chirps.  I look in the direction of it and there stands some scrany strung out kid user.  Is he talking to me?  I don't know, don't care.  I turn in the opposite direction and plod forward.

I spot an open news store a short ways down the street, tip my face towards the sidewalk and keep moving, counting my rythmless steps until the gaudy neaon let's me now i've arrived at my destination.

Entering the store I find a leathery old man, he looks as bad as I feel.  Iask for the pack of smokes, uncertain of how I'll pay.  I'm just hanging in the moment, frozen.  

'Kill him for the cigs?' I ask myself.

Hands fishing around in the coat pocket I come upon some wads of paper that feel like cash.  I pull them out and pray they are and that's I'll have enough.  One bill's a twenty.  They're all greasy and dirty like my clothes but the man behind the counter, he doesn't care.  He takes the twenty hands me my cigarettes and change.

To be continued