Haunting me on the bus home.

The sky seems to crunch like broken glass and syringes, a wild cosmos. I left via the emergency exit of the dingy club we’d drunk our sorrows in, romance on her sickbed since that 99p Valentines card travesty in February. It is a staircase I climb, yet it is of no shape or colour, no substance. I simply seem to mount the sky, a kind of broken glass suspended in space. I move quickly, stealthily, hunting something way up there, in the black infinity. Raw egg drips down my chin, frothy yellow poison, a rabid dog. I’m sure it’s vomit, from an over-zealous attempt to drown something troublesome within with vodka and daiquiris.

The sky seems to flatten here and I am calmer now, there is no sound of buses reminding me to go home. The universe seems to unfold and I inhale colours that had been left off of the curriculum. A perilous shade of pertileena, a mist of mysul and a hue of beautiful tomkinf bathing my body. My five senses explode into seven. It is like everything and nothing makes sense at once, as though I am drinking from the fountain of knowledge, hydrating my soul. Yet with this knowledge, my sorrow grows greater, burning a hole in my chest, reminding me of the inhuman thing I did and have done and continue to do.

I can feel the rain, a thunder storm, but there is no wetness, no water to wash away this decaying sense of doom. My skin itches, I want to scratch it off, those 7 freckled layers, this paper membrane that carelessly contains this wretched soul. Exorcise me heaven, purge me of my wrongdoing. Where are the buses now? Let me go home and sleep this off. It’s just the alcohol. It’s just the alcohol.

There is a bell echoing, somewhere in my head I think at first, but it is more distant than that. Perhaps my mind is distant and they’re gone riding together, on a jaunt around the universe, my bleeding brain sat in the basket of the bicycle, wearing a straw hat.

I can see it now and a boy riding towards me through the sky, illuminated by a plethora of colours. I am sure I drank with him tonight, stooped over the dirty bar, sticky with whisky rings, the illegal smoke of cigarettes that should be in the mouths of strangers in the rain outside, drifting over our heads. His curls obscure his eyes, but they glint occasionally, in unison with his smile, somewhere between mischievous and lethal.

“I know you, yeah, English girl, throwing all that bizarre vocabulary at me and asking all those probing questions. I guess I’m famous now right?” He laughs, but I don’t catch the joke. The sky beneath my feet suddenly feels less stable. It’s like my body is swinging, a child stood on a swing with the shattered glass of drunken youth beneath.

“Don’t look so scared, I’m a friendly guy. Yeah, you know that. You made me feel really welcome the other night.” I just knew he knew. You know when you just know? That glaring smile that was so calculating, strategically stretched across his glowing cheeks. He was handsome, but only recently aware of this. It was the way he stood, so familiar with this place, as though his kingdom. I was suddenly the one being questioned, judged, persecuted.

“So you know?” my lips tremble, my knees fail me, and I submit to him, as though he’ll show me mercy, as though he is my God and I am not worthy, and I’m not. Not since he knows, not for what I’ve done. I hear the water in his mouth like the cracking of thunder and his foamy spit lands just beside me, I don’t know if purposefully or not.

“Yeah, actually. I didn’t expect you to be the type to do a thing like that. I dunno, you just seemed so together and open. Controlled.” He comes closer, but I can only see his feet. “Did you think you were living life? Did you think it would make you feel something when you did that? It’s vulgar. God, I thought you were so pristine, kind of self-disciplined.”

“I am, I mean, I was... but sometimes we slip up. You must know that. You fall off your bike, you mess up and you get back and you try to live. And I’m trying, I’m really trying.” I try to sob but fail, I am not sorry enough.

“Riding without a helmet is one thing, the breeze in your hair, but you’re riding in the storm, you’re running through a hall of broken mirrors. You’re just sick.”

The sky implodes, I fall through it, through its colours, and I hear his bell, haunting me. Haunting me on the bus home.

: 02 Dec 2009 12:56 |  Tags: Creative Non-Fiction |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem