In The Light We Must Stay

6:02pm.

I wake.

My apartment.

What a mess.

I remember when it used to be clean. When it used to be a happy place. A place I didn’t mind living in. Now it’s a prison. A hole. A hole I’ve dug myself into and no matter how hard I try to get out I simply can’t...

The constant musk doesn’t help anything. That regurgitating tingle of the nostrils.

Enough to make several elderly ladies gag, silently.

I work 12 hour days in my miserable office job. Stuck in a box. Day after day. Calculating numbers. Solving equations.

Selling my soul to fill someone else’s pockets... Not exactly a source of happiness.

But after a long day I can always be comforted by the thought of going home to my lovely wife.

Wrong.

She’s out every night. Exploring the underbelly of this rotten city.

She sleeps around..

I know she does. She’s probably fucking someone as we speak.

Whore... She hasn’t loved me in years.

But I stick around.. I still love her... Why.

Oh god why.

A desperate clinging to the way things used to be...

Like banging my tired head against a brick wall.

Over and over.

Hoping that it will return to the feather wall it once was...

When does a hope turn blind? Only a fool could not tell...

There’s only one speck of light for me in this dim lit world.

Only one thing that brightens my day.

The only thing I live for is probably what I’ll die for.

The hit. The incredible rise to that oh so pleasing peak.

My drug. My addiction. My addiction is everything.

And right now all I want to do is brighten up my day.

I find some clothes to put on.

A coffee. A cigarette. Rinse and repeat.

Keys. Wallet. Jacket. I leave.

Free. From my hole.

The city is my plaything once again.

As I step out of my building and onto the street, the city’s being fills my senses once again.

Downtown. Saturday night.

Both dead and alive at the same time.

An ugly place. The ghouls truly do come out at night.

Crusty bars, strip clubs and liquor stores line the streets.

A strong reek of urine accompanied by the regular light green haze made for a romantic setting..

The hookers and the homeless. Out in full flight..

Pocket. Cigarettes. Lighter. Lit.

Inhale. Exhale.

I make my way onto the street. Hands in pockets, I walk. Not making eye contact with any of the misfits around me.

A rumble of thunder. Rain.

Maybe it will clean up the mess of this city. But my hopes aren’t high.

I walk on. My leather jacket keeps me warm on nights like this. Keeps me alive. Protects me from the rain, from the cold, from the disheartening chill that seems to be everywhere. Though not very well.

I turn a corner. A junky lies in the gutter. Eyes rolled back. Saturated. Not curled up like one should be in the blistering cold. But laying flat. And still.

I pass him by.

I’m getting close now. Keep going.

You’re almost there. Don’t look back. There’s nothing you can do about him. He’s a lost cause. Just keep walking.

Step by step. The street seems to grow longer. Step. By broken step. My body tingles as I see my destination approaching.

Number 52, ‘Luc’s Hotel’.

The broad black doors stare me down. The flaking paint and weathered, rusting metal edges add a certain, liveliness to it...

I grab the rusted, once smooth door handle.

Entry.

His apartment’s on the third floor. Scaling the stairs isn’t hard. Fighting my natural gag reflex from giving in to the constant reek of excrement is another question.

Step by Step. Number 52 Back Street, Apartment 3a.

I knock.

Nothing. Knock again.

Still nothing. God damn it. The fuck is this?

I knock. Harder this time. The door creaks open.

I watch as light creeps into the dark apartment. I push the door open.

A scene indeed.

There he was.

Lying on his floor. Face down. Head resting on the carpet.

And the walls.

..

And some on the roof.

Some slimy mother fucker has infiltrated his home and blown the kids brains all over the place. Christ..

Maybe the cops. Maybe his neighbour. Who knows. Seem to of searched through everything. Everything is ransacked.

I guess they knew what they were looking for.

I stop staring and tip toe into his bathroom. I know where he kept his stash. Sink cupboard. 2nd shelf. Behind the aspirin.

An old and intricate cigarette tin.

I clench my teeth. My insides tighten.

I pop the lid..

One.

One hit left.

An overwhelming sense of relief waves over me.

How did they not find this box? Why didn’t they look in here?

“Fuck ‘em”. I grab it and run. Closing door 3a behind me.

..

Back Street. We meet again. It’s still raining. I take a left.

Pondering on the scene that had just presented its self to me, I light up a cigarette.

Why? Who?

Godammit, I sound like a detective.

It’s a rough city. It’s the rough part of a rough city. These things happen. But something wasn’t right...

I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it...

I take long hard draw on my cigarette.

Holding it in.

Breathing it out.

Sweeter than air.

“Hey mannn you got any spare change for me I need to buy a –“ “FUCK OFF!”

I don’t have time for their shit. Not tonight.

I needed to get somewhere safe. Somewhere warm.

Not home. Anywhere but there...

There’s an empty, rundown house towards the bay that I normally break into. Seems like an obvious choice.

I pull the hit out of my pocket, and look at it... How could something so small affect someone’s life so much? Something so insignificant...

How could something so sour be the only sweet thing in ones life?

How can harm be healing?

God my life is a mess. I slip the hit under my tongue.

Soon everything will be alright. Everything will be ok.

Soon.

I must reach my destination soon. The time of high is closing.

The lingering bum follows me. Limping.

A sad sight, but all too familiar.

I turn around and look at him.

He stops. Too sketchy to look me in the eye.

Scratching. Fidgeting.

I throw a cigarette at his feet. There’s my good deed for the month.

I continue walking.

I begin to feel my body grow numb. The tips of my fingers. The centre of my chest.

That oh so pleasurable tingling returns. My head feels lighter. My stride, rusted.

The familiar weight I’ve been carrying in my chest these last few years all of a sudden begins melting away once again.

An unfamiliar warmth returns to my heart area.

The pressure of life seems to be easing one more time.

“Ah my love, we meet again” I whisper to myself

I must find refuge before the drug consumes me completely.

My body.

My mind.

My soul.

I turn into a shortcut through the neatly concealed alleyway half way up Yates street.

Fuckiiiin’, Yates streeeet.

Fuck!

I breathe hard on my cigarette.

The presence of the street lights diminish as the darkness of the alley takes over.

Grimy. Wet. Dark. Narrow.

Great. Just the way it should be.

The tingling continues up my arms and down to my legs. Walking becomes difficult.

Out of nowhere an elderly woman, dressed entirely in black, grey frizzed hair and weathered skin, jumps out at me. Grabbing me around the arm.

Pulling me downwards.

Towards the ground.

I struggle, but manage to break free. “FUCK!”

Thrown off by the surprise situation, I turn around swiftly. To confront the old hag.

Nothing.

Not a person in sight.

..

I rub my eyes. And squint.

No one.

The alley is as dead as the crumpled fiend that chose the gutter to be his final resting place.

Confusion. Doubt.

Insanity?

No. Just potent.

Another draw. I walk on.

Exiting the alleyway I spot my destination.

A haggard old shack. Broken windows. Barely standing.

..

A sudden rush of blood to my head forces me to grab onto the street light beside me. My cigarette falls clumsily from my numb lips into a pungent puddle of someone’s sick.

... man down

Slowly it consumes me. It is coming. I must be quick.

Dry, peeling paint and haze filled windows surround the walls of the old house.

It reminded me of an old whiskey bottle that had washed up on a beach somewhere.

No one knew the origin.

No one knew how it got there.

No one knew the previous owner.

It just was.

Anonymous existence...

The stark realisation that I relate more to a hypothetical abandoned bottle than anyone or anything around me is quickly swept away by the sound of the crashing waves tickling my ear drums.

I quickly climb the broken front steps. I peer inside to see if any other junkies had the same idea as me.

..

Nothing. No one. The house is empty.

Just the way I like it.

At last, this ghoul can finally be free...

I stumble through the open door.

Hands stabilising myself upon the walls.

..

A deep inhale... Stale smoke, dry sweat and urine. The regular.

Needles litter the floor, almost like a type of indoor garden.

The walls of the living room had become mouldy. Leaks from the roof had provided long dark drips down the walls.

I felt like I was in someones bad dream.

..

I drop to my knees.

Refuge. At last.

I fall onto my side and then onto my back.

..

My insides are in motion.

Everything inside me is rolling.

Horrifically orgasmic momentum.

For a split second a thought crosses my mind: “Why do I do this to myself?”

Only to be dismissed as quickly as it came.

I spy an old tape player in the corner of the room.

I crawl over, barely able to control my own body.

Manage to slide my finger over the play button.

Coney Island Baby by Lou Reed starts playing from the old crackly stereo.

I close my eyes. Trying to mentally stabilise myself.

..

I remember one piece of immortal advice my wife had given me back in her drug days,

Our drug days...

The good days...

“Just let go”

And so I do.

It takes hold.

Violent waves of energy are flowing up and down my body. That all too familiar, bittersweet euphoria ensues.

Oh god, I love it.

My mind flips from the tight constraint of stress to the warm water bed of this elevated vibration.

..The guitar hypnotises me. ..

I open my eyes to be greeted by the same old soul graveyard. Except now it seemed different.

It seemed beautiful. Almost dream-like.

..

I notice the tiniest little weed that had sprouted in the corner of the room.

I can’t take my eyes off it. It’s a vibrant green, triumphantly alive little plant that had made its home in a place so dead. It had somehow broken through the layers of death and decay to come forth, with life.

Prophetic little mother fucker.

Waves of energy seemed to be radiating from it.

I reach over to the corner and pull it out.

I don’t know why, I just do.

A subtle sense of sadness wash over me. “Why did I do that?”

It was just growing... Just grasping to life in a decrepit city. Just pushing through the seemingly endless layers of shit and slander.

..

Why do I always hurt things?

What is this hunger I have to hurt? Where did that come from?

I get down on my hands and knees and inspect the little life form.

Suffocating. Void of its roots.

My face centimetres from the ground.

…

“I” ... “am” ... “you”

..

“I love you.”

The words drip out of my mouth without me even thinking about it.

I lean back on the wall.

Sadness fills my being.

A single tear falls from my eye and rolls down my cheek.

I wipe the sweat from my forehead.

Everything is very almost too much. A slight overwhelm.

Trembling, I reach down into my pocket and pull out my last cigarette.

Lighter. Lit.

I ponder the meaning of existence. I smoke my cigarette.

Maybe life is struggle. Maybe life is pain. Maybe it’s just how you deal with that pain and how you overcome it that determines the essence of your life.

As I’m pre occupied with my late understanding of the phrase ‘Seize the Day’, A crow flies in through the open window and lands about a metre or two from my feet.

It investigates the room. Nibbles at a bit of something on the ground, then looks straight at me.

I stare back. ..

Unfaltering eye contact. ..

What seems like a whole minute passes while the crow is still staring directly at me. All of a sudden, the crow opens its mouth and in a very wise old voice says, "what are you doing son?”

It then puts its head on an angle, turns and flies away.

.........

My mind is blank.

... What am I doing?...

What is this den of a life I have created for myself?

This slum of a life.

This cage.

How can I have let my own existence get to this? How did it go from the golden times that they were to this state of life rot & darkness that I now find myself in?

How did I let myself, slowly but surely, sabotage every aspect of my happy existence?

What poison seeped into my mind?

A deep, contemplative inhale.

..

A long, tired exhale.

What sort of abysmal question is that? I know what brought the darkness… I know what sucked the light out of my life and my marriage… This drug, this beast, this demon… How did I let it control me this much, how did I allow that control to sour every single aspect of my life? Why am I so weak? It just made me feel complete again.. It made me feel like there was something beautiful just over the horizon.. but I never stopped to recognise how good I really had it.. Had.. Oh god..

I fucking hate myself.

Over the other side of the room, I notice that someone has written the words ‘she loves you yeah yeah yeah’ on the wall.

...You’re wrong Ringo. You’re wrong!

Nobody loves me...

I stare a little closer. The wallpaper is changing.

The walls slowly morph into becoming the same as the outside of the house. The roof all of a sudden has roof tiles. Between the roof and the wall there's gutters with water flowing down them.

The crow flies back though through the window again, and sits on the roof. Upside down.

A bewildered gaze.

Grotesque waves of energy emanate from everything in view,

My head starts to throb. . .

I pass out...

..

A few hours pass. I wake.

Still slouched up against the wall. My cigarette had fallen out of my mouth and burnt a hole in my shirt, going through to my skin. It doesn’t faze me at all.

In fact, I enjoy it..

..

It's almost day. Almost.

I leave the house.

Heading towards my favourite shortcut through Yates Street. Home soon.

Food. I start to walk faster. My stomach feels like it’s going to implode.

As I walk past Luc’s Hotel, police cars and an ambulance are out the front. Guess I forgot to close the door. Would have given some old lady quite a shock.

I turn a corner onto my street. I made it.

I fucking made it.

I quickly scale the flight of stairs leading up to my apartment.

Home.

I excitedly check the fridge, only to be met by a lidless jar of mustard with more inhabitants than this apartment.

Defeat.

I collapse onto the couch, but something doesn't feel right…

The feeling of despair that always follows me after me and the drug reunite, seems to be heavier than ever.

I sit with it, or try to. I struggle.

..

After a few minutes I get up and make a coffee.

Light up a cigarette I found on the floor.

I go into my room and sit on my bed.

..

A sharp sense of emptiness stabs me in the gut.

I feel any last beaten and battered shred of hope be swept out from underneath me.

"Fuck…”

..

My life is in shambles...

I put my head in my hands. Run my fingers through my hair.

..

“Ungghhh”...

A rotten marriage.

A shitty job.

My pathetic addiction to the drug...

A wasted existence...

Fuck.

I've really fucked this thing they call life up.

..

I take a hard draw on my cigarette. A mouthful of coffee.

“Oh, my love.. Where did I go so wrong? How did we end up this way?”

A tsunami of darkness hits me dead centre in the chest.

Blatant apathy.

I start crying.

..

“I’ve had enough... ”

..

I turn left and open the bed side table draw.

A Colt 1911.

Stares me in the face.

I pick it up, and look back at it.

Thoughts of the possibility of healing my life flash through my mind..

Thoughts of putting in the work to repair my life to a point where I am proud of it..

Thoughts of a brighter day..

Though I just don’t know how to love myself...

I never did…

..

I put my cigarette between my lips and breath hard.

With tears rolling down my face, I throw it on the floor.

Fuck this life, I'm ready for the next one...

In the light we must stay for in darkness we shall perish...

I raise the pistol up to the side of my head...

..

A sliver of sunlight shoots between the buildings.

..

To be continued.