A short story about drug addiction, inspired by my first viewing of Requiem For A Dream. It's a little longer than the stuff I've already posted, and a little more violent too. Enjoy! I think.
Alive
It's what Tyler Durden would call a near-life experience. She collapses, the gun dropping to the floor and blood gushing from the stumps of her severed fingers. The bullet has formed a small hole in her side and burst out the other side of her body, forming a bloody wound in her back the size of a child's fist. As her consciousness subsides, she realises that she is, tragically, still alive.
The dream begins simply enough. She is standing on a beach, a white dress hanging off her shoulders, skimming stones which are swallowed by the sea. Her toes dig into the warm sand, an experience she would normally enjoy, but there is something sinister about it here, alone on this beach. Her feet suddenly feel heavy, flesh becomes like concrete, dragging her down into the sand. The pebbles in her hand weigh her down; she struggles to pull her feet out of the sand and shouts out a man's name, hoping he will help her. Then Roger approaches, dressed in a suit and tie, his shoes pristine, sand-free. He watches her struggling, sees her sinking further, keeping her mouth closed and breathing heavily through her nose as the beach engulfs her.
He watches her, smiles and says calmly, "Die."
She wakes. The first things she sees are her left index and middle finger, ripped off and lying side by side in a small pool of blood about two feet away from her. Opening her eyes further, she sees the dead man on the other side of the room, the one who shot her. Strangely, she feels no pain and is calm, remembering how she got here, how it all began.
Jimmy is a pusher and an addict. He loves her as much as a heroin user can love something that doesn't require a syringe and a vein. She is important to him because she can get drugs. Every now and then he looks at her and wonders what would happen if she died. Would he sell himself for drugs like she does? Are his fixes that important? He tries to picture himself getting fucked. He tries to imagine being on his knees while surrounded by men. He thinks of warm sperm hitting his face. He opens his eyes and takes a drag on his cigarette.
"I'm going out," she says, getting up from the worn chair in the corner of the room. "Shouldn't be too long, okay? Do you want me to get you anything?"
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slim stack of twenty-pound notes, holds them up to her. "Go and see Roger for me, would you?"
"Jimmy, for fuck's sake." This is the second time this week. She's pissed off, but he knows she'll do it for him. Her addiction is not as strong as his. She's still able to separate the real from the drug-haze, still able to feel things on an emotional level. Jimmy passed that stage weeks, maybe months, ago. Emotions are for wankers. All he needs to feel is that needle pricking his arm and the pure, unadulterated sense of ecstasy that follows to know that he's still alive.
She sighs, takes the money. "I hope you know what you're asking me to do." She kisses his hands. "I'll be two hours, then."
The taste of his cock still lingers on her tongue; the slippery wetness of his come is still sweet on its tip. She rolls over onto her right hip, tenderly fingering the small hole in her left side but afraid to inspect the real damage, the explosion in her lower back. There is blood everywhere, his and hers converging in the middle of the room. She tries to struggle to a sitting position, but it's difficult - she's losing feeling in her legs, though whether this is because the bullet has gone through her spine (she suddenly wonders if it might have done) or because she has lain inert, in an awkward pose for an hour now at least, she doesn't know. Using her elbows and hands to push herself along, she half-crawls towards Roger's dead body. Upon reaching her severed, torn fingers, just two feet away, she breathes in sharply, a gasp, and vomits.
"Roger?"
There's no answer, but that's not unusual. He's sometimes sitting in the living room, quiz shows on television turned up way too loud, but that isn't the case today. Peering through the thin net curtains, shielding her eyes from the glare of the street reflected in the window, she sees that Roger's not even in the room. The television stands black and silent. Making her way round to the back of the house, she calls his name again, then says her own, thinking that this may elicit some response. As she reaches the kitchen, a knuckle taps on the window from inside. Roger stands in there, framed in the glass. He gestures toward the back door, and she waits outside it while he fetches the key. The door opens, and a cold smile slithers across his face.
"Come in."
Finally, an excruciating half hour later, she is just barely able to push herself up onto her knees. She kneels over the body, breathless, her own body sore. Tasting him still in her mouth, she spits violently on his dead face and then uses her sleeve to wipe her lips, to get rid of his stench on her tongue.
Her own gun, still lying in her blood, is empty, and though she knows he is dead, she needs to deliver a parting shot, a final fuck you. Wrestling Roger's cold fingers from his pistol is not easy without two of her own.
She cocks the gun.
"Cunt."
Bang.
This is the degrading part. Roger is old enough to be her father, but it is the only way for her to get the drugs they need. The money alone is not enough and after she gives it to him, he leans forward, his grey lips puckered.
This will only take a minute, perhaps two. She leans forward too, lightly kissing him and closing her eyes. He pulls her into him, and she breathes in his smell, cigar smoke and sweat. He starts to unzip his trousers, and pushes her down to her knees, easing his wrinkled cock out of his underwear. She supposes that it serves her right, really. She's always had a rape fantasy. As she takes him into her mouth, however, she remembers what she is doing, and wishes she were dead.
She feels the butt of her gun, secreted in her knickers for emergencies only. The head of Roger's cock begins to pulsate, to feel bigger, heavier in her mouth and she realises that he is about to come. He grabs her hair, pushes her face into his crotch and cries out. She reaches into her knickers unseen, holds the pistol in her right hand and, just as he comes, brings the gun out of her underwear and presses it into his belly. She fires once, stumbling backward, his sperm still warm in her mouth.
Roger goes to the floor, screaming in pain. The bullet leaves his body somewhere in his upper back, near the shoulder blade. She advances on him and cocks the gun, squeezing the trigger once more. Click.
Nothing.
Click.
Nothing.
New strength allows Roger to kick her in the stomach, sending her sprawling back. He quickly draws his own gun (from where? She is sure he didn't have one before) and fires. Two of her fingers, the index and middle fingers of her left hand, are ripped off and the bullet punctures her left side, careering through flesh and muscle, to exit violently through her lower back. She falls to her knees once more, and Roger dies, screaming in pain.
It's what Tyler Durden would call a near-life experience. As her consciousness subsides, she realises that she is, tragically, still alive.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Freedom
The final story in the collection of four short pieces about relationships, written in 2008 in Russia.
Freedom
She has to get out. This room, this house, this relationship – they’re all wrong and she wants something different, more nourishing. The baby-blue walls reflect the sadness she feels daily as she goes about her business as housewife and tends to his needs. She looks at the cot, which she could never bring herself to dismantle and give away, and sitting down beside it in the cold blue room, tears fall down her cheeks for the life she will never have.
They got married some years ago: he was a soldier in the Army who was yet to see action; she was a young woman with a head full of ideals. Looking back, she supposes she was too young for marriage, but at the time it felt right. All of her friends were married or at least planning a marriage and everyone she knew made her match seem so romantic. A soldier in the Army – what could be better than that?
Two years before, she had thought that she was pregnant, which came as no big surprise as they had been trying for several months. Her father made the couple a brand new cot for the baby to sleep in and his parents helped them to paint the walls of the smallest bedroom in their little house a shade of baby blue. Three months went by, four. They were both very happy.
In the sixth month of the pregnancy, she began to experience sharp, stabbing pains in her stomach. The baby had stopped kicking a week or so before. He phoned an ambulance and followed the phone operator’s instructions. Before the ambulance had arrived, she began to bleed copiously from the vagina. By the time the paramedics appeared on the scene, the foetus had died.
Eight months ago he was called away to serve his country in Iraq and he went with no great sense of foreboding or unease; these were the requirements of his job, and he was only going to serve six months out there before he was brought home. It was nothing to worry about.
After five months, her young husband came home from the war. She wept when she saw him being wheeled out of the aeroplane. The village he had been stationed in had suffered a suicide bombing; his left leg and two fingers on his left hand had been severed in the attack. She felt herself repulsed by him, this man whom she had so loved. She didn’t want him to touch her; she couldn’t bear to be alone in a room with him and the situation in their shared bedroom, their shared bed, was desperate. How could she want his children? She didn’t even want him anymore.
Sighing, she stands up and gazes sadly at the cot, which her father made. Her husband is downstairs now, eating his lunch which he insisted on making for himself. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes; a teardrop inches its way down her right cheek. This marriage has imprisoned her; she is only twenty-nine and can never have children because she can’t stand the thought of making love to her crippled husband; the thought of his incomplete hands on her skin make her shiver violently. She can’t leave him though; she loves him too much.
The small mirror on the wall shows her sad reflection; a reflection of her life. In a fit of grief and rage, she takes the mirror down from its hook and throws it against the opposite wall, the glass shattering into a thousand tiny, glittering shards. Then she sinks to the floor and lowers her head into her hands.
He calls her name from downstairs. Sighing once more, she draws a shaky breath and wipes her eyes on her shirt sleeve, stands and makes her way down the stairs to him, a forced smile appearing on her tear-stained face.
Freedom
She has to get out. This room, this house, this relationship – they’re all wrong and she wants something different, more nourishing. The baby-blue walls reflect the sadness she feels daily as she goes about her business as housewife and tends to his needs. She looks at the cot, which she could never bring herself to dismantle and give away, and sitting down beside it in the cold blue room, tears fall down her cheeks for the life she will never have.
They got married some years ago: he was a soldier in the Army who was yet to see action; she was a young woman with a head full of ideals. Looking back, she supposes she was too young for marriage, but at the time it felt right. All of her friends were married or at least planning a marriage and everyone she knew made her match seem so romantic. A soldier in the Army – what could be better than that?
Two years before, she had thought that she was pregnant, which came as no big surprise as they had been trying for several months. Her father made the couple a brand new cot for the baby to sleep in and his parents helped them to paint the walls of the smallest bedroom in their little house a shade of baby blue. Three months went by, four. They were both very happy.
In the sixth month of the pregnancy, she began to experience sharp, stabbing pains in her stomach. The baby had stopped kicking a week or so before. He phoned an ambulance and followed the phone operator’s instructions. Before the ambulance had arrived, she began to bleed copiously from the vagina. By the time the paramedics appeared on the scene, the foetus had died.
Eight months ago he was called away to serve his country in Iraq and he went with no great sense of foreboding or unease; these were the requirements of his job, and he was only going to serve six months out there before he was brought home. It was nothing to worry about.
After five months, her young husband came home from the war. She wept when she saw him being wheeled out of the aeroplane. The village he had been stationed in had suffered a suicide bombing; his left leg and two fingers on his left hand had been severed in the attack. She felt herself repulsed by him, this man whom she had so loved. She didn’t want him to touch her; she couldn’t bear to be alone in a room with him and the situation in their shared bedroom, their shared bed, was desperate. How could she want his children? She didn’t even want him anymore.
Sighing, she stands up and gazes sadly at the cot, which her father made. Her husband is downstairs now, eating his lunch which he insisted on making for himself. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes; a teardrop inches its way down her right cheek. This marriage has imprisoned her; she is only twenty-nine and can never have children because she can’t stand the thought of making love to her crippled husband; the thought of his incomplete hands on her skin make her shiver violently. She can’t leave him though; she loves him too much.
The small mirror on the wall shows her sad reflection; a reflection of her life. In a fit of grief and rage, she takes the mirror down from its hook and throws it against the opposite wall, the glass shattering into a thousand tiny, glittering shards. Then she sinks to the floor and lowers her head into her hands.
He calls her name from downstairs. Sighing once more, she draws a shaky breath and wipes her eyes on her shirt sleeve, stands and makes her way down the stairs to him, a forced smile appearing on her tear-stained face.
Love
The third of these stories is about a violent relationship, again written in Russia.
Love
The wound still smarts three days later. Her left eye felt the brunt of his momentary madness; the bruise is blackened and sore. She drove him to it, of course. He would never deliberately do anything to hurt her. She knows that.
The first time, she’d walked into a door. She’d not been looking where she was going; the kids were acting up, she was trying to get him his tea before he had to go out again (though what cause he had to go out so late on Monday nights, she could never work out – he never seemed to come home on those nights, either) and it just happened. A momentary lapse of concentration was all it took. A black eye and two stitches; a night in a hospital. These things happen, don’t they?
It’s not his fault, it’s hers. She needs to be more attentive.
The second time had been different. The wounds had been lower, on her thighs this time. She’d fallen whilst coming down some stairs and landed awkwardly. She didn’t know how she could have been so silly – but then, she probably should have been looking where she was going.
These are the stories she tells to others and to herself. She could write a book. She’d call it Love: An Irony.
This time is the third in a month. She said something wrong; maybe about his drinking, maybe about his staying out late and the lack of phone calls when he did so. Maybe she’d done nothing wrong at all – he probably just felt bored. She remembers that after she’d said whatever it was that made him so mad, he’d come at her from the other side of the living room, fist raised and grinning that sick grin as she cowered on the sofa. As she slid to the floor, crying, he’d punched her in the face for the second time and stamped on her stomach. When the kids came down to see what the matter was, he’d sent them back upstairs and said that Daddy would be up in a minute to read them a story. Once they’d gone, he’d hit her again and again and called her a cunt.
But she’s probably just walked into a solid object again, like a door, for example. She’s ever so clumsy; there’s no end of mystery bruises on her skin and he’s such a loving husband that the injuries couldn’t possibly have anything to do with him. She laughs dryly to herself at this thought as she looks at the wound in the mirror and winces; it hurts to smile. This is not love. This love is a lie.
Her wounds are real.
Love
The wound still smarts three days later. Her left eye felt the brunt of his momentary madness; the bruise is blackened and sore. She drove him to it, of course. He would never deliberately do anything to hurt her. She knows that.
The first time, she’d walked into a door. She’d not been looking where she was going; the kids were acting up, she was trying to get him his tea before he had to go out again (though what cause he had to go out so late on Monday nights, she could never work out – he never seemed to come home on those nights, either) and it just happened. A momentary lapse of concentration was all it took. A black eye and two stitches; a night in a hospital. These things happen, don’t they?
It’s not his fault, it’s hers. She needs to be more attentive.
The second time had been different. The wounds had been lower, on her thighs this time. She’d fallen whilst coming down some stairs and landed awkwardly. She didn’t know how she could have been so silly – but then, she probably should have been looking where she was going.
These are the stories she tells to others and to herself. She could write a book. She’d call it Love: An Irony.
This time is the third in a month. She said something wrong; maybe about his drinking, maybe about his staying out late and the lack of phone calls when he did so. Maybe she’d done nothing wrong at all – he probably just felt bored. She remembers that after she’d said whatever it was that made him so mad, he’d come at her from the other side of the living room, fist raised and grinning that sick grin as she cowered on the sofa. As she slid to the floor, crying, he’d punched her in the face for the second time and stamped on her stomach. When the kids came down to see what the matter was, he’d sent them back upstairs and said that Daddy would be up in a minute to read them a story. Once they’d gone, he’d hit her again and again and called her a cunt.
But she’s probably just walked into a solid object again, like a door, for example. She’s ever so clumsy; there’s no end of mystery bruises on her skin and he’s such a loving husband that the injuries couldn’t possibly have anything to do with him. She laughs dryly to herself at this thought as she looks at the wound in the mirror and winces; it hurts to smile. This is not love. This love is a lie.
Her wounds are real.
Beauty
The second of four short stories about relationships, also written while living in St. Petersburg.
Beauty
The bathroom looks like the aftermath of a murder scene. Reddened fingerprints are tattooed on the sink and the mirror; the stains of her attempts to recapture a lost youth. The light, not harsh, shines down upon her age-ravaged face, illuminating the hollows that her eyes have become, emphasising each wrinkle, each crease.
She was desirable once. At one time, makeup had been simply a way to increase her evident beauty. Soldiers who visited the theatre at which she had worked as an actress had always whistled when she walked onstage to play her role; some had even said distasteful words – words of appreciation, but distasteful nonetheless – but even these she had been able to shake off, smiling in the direction of the wolf-whistles and gasps and cheers. The Great War, could one call any war such, had been a great time for her in terms of her career.
She was unhappy, though she did not show it. Her husband was called up to fight for his country. His parents had been so proud of him, as had she, but she knew what the war effort meant for men like him. He was a strong man, but she alone knew that the war would weaken him. Everyone had praised him highly for going off so bravely to fight, to win. And no one expected any harm to come to any of their brave boys in the Great War. After all, it was all supposed to be over by Christmas.
Christmas came and Christmas went. In March of the next year, the Great War no longer seeming so great, she had heard that he had been taken to a special camp. Her work meant that she only saw the soldiers who were on leave, and even then only in the dim light of the small theatre: she never really understood what was going on. Her husband was stationed overseas; he was probably doing the same things as the soldiers whom she entertained with plays; having fun, laughing, drinking, smoking and waiting anxiously for the day when everything would be over and he could come home, and back to her waiting arms.
In April, a car pulled up across the road from her house. Two uniformed men got out and crossed the street, and one of them took his hat off and knocked loudly on her front door. When she opened it, the younger of the two men, who was still wearing his hat, asked whether or not she was the wife of a particular soldier in the war effort. When she replied that she was indeed that woman, the elder man exhaled and requested that they be invited inside.
The bathroom looks like the aftermath of a murder scene. Reddened fingerprints are tattooed on the sink and the mirror; the stains of her attempts to recapture a lost youth. The light, not harsh, shines down upon her age-ravaged face, illuminating the hollows that her eyes have become, emphasising each wrinkle, each crease. Even after the two men had explained all that had happened, even after they had put her in contact with her husband’s poor parents, even after the funeral itself, she still does not believe that what they told her was true. So every day, even now in her seventy-fifth lonely year of life, she stands in front of the bathroom mirror with a little pot of rouge, a lipstick and an eye pencil to recreate the beauty that was hers in her youth. Then she waits anxiously for the day when everything will be over and he can come home, and back to her waiting arms.
Beauty
The bathroom looks like the aftermath of a murder scene. Reddened fingerprints are tattooed on the sink and the mirror; the stains of her attempts to recapture a lost youth. The light, not harsh, shines down upon her age-ravaged face, illuminating the hollows that her eyes have become, emphasising each wrinkle, each crease.
She was desirable once. At one time, makeup had been simply a way to increase her evident beauty. Soldiers who visited the theatre at which she had worked as an actress had always whistled when she walked onstage to play her role; some had even said distasteful words – words of appreciation, but distasteful nonetheless – but even these she had been able to shake off, smiling in the direction of the wolf-whistles and gasps and cheers. The Great War, could one call any war such, had been a great time for her in terms of her career.
She was unhappy, though she did not show it. Her husband was called up to fight for his country. His parents had been so proud of him, as had she, but she knew what the war effort meant for men like him. He was a strong man, but she alone knew that the war would weaken him. Everyone had praised him highly for going off so bravely to fight, to win. And no one expected any harm to come to any of their brave boys in the Great War. After all, it was all supposed to be over by Christmas.
Christmas came and Christmas went. In March of the next year, the Great War no longer seeming so great, she had heard that he had been taken to a special camp. Her work meant that she only saw the soldiers who were on leave, and even then only in the dim light of the small theatre: she never really understood what was going on. Her husband was stationed overseas; he was probably doing the same things as the soldiers whom she entertained with plays; having fun, laughing, drinking, smoking and waiting anxiously for the day when everything would be over and he could come home, and back to her waiting arms.
In April, a car pulled up across the road from her house. Two uniformed men got out and crossed the street, and one of them took his hat off and knocked loudly on her front door. When she opened it, the younger of the two men, who was still wearing his hat, asked whether or not she was the wife of a particular soldier in the war effort. When she replied that she was indeed that woman, the elder man exhaled and requested that they be invited inside.
The bathroom looks like the aftermath of a murder scene. Reddened fingerprints are tattooed on the sink and the mirror; the stains of her attempts to recapture a lost youth. The light, not harsh, shines down upon her age-ravaged face, illuminating the hollows that her eyes have become, emphasising each wrinkle, each crease. Even after the two men had explained all that had happened, even after they had put her in contact with her husband’s poor parents, even after the funeral itself, she still does not believe that what they told her was true. So every day, even now in her seventy-fifth lonely year of life, she stands in front of the bathroom mirror with a little pot of rouge, a lipstick and an eye pencil to recreate the beauty that was hers in her youth. Then she waits anxiously for the day when everything will be over and he can come home, and back to her waiting arms.
Truth
This is something I wrote in St. Petersburg in 2008. It's the first of four very short pieces about relationships.
Truth
The wine bottle lies smashed on the wooden floor of their living room; there’s claret everywhere. He lies unconscious next to the full-length mirror at the far end of the room, his hair dyed red from a mixture of wine and his blood. The truth hurts.
The wine is the fuel for the fire. They’ve already argued tonight; he doesn’t like that her job requires such long hours. He suspects that she’s having an affair. She suspects nothing.
It’s seven in the evening when they sit down to a meal she slaved over all afternoon. He does nothing to help; but then, he does nothing at all. Since he was made redundant, he sits in front of the television, dead-eyed, his face expressionless. Sometimes he goes for hours, sometimes days, without saying anything to her, and he never turns off the television either. He goes out at night about twice a week, and on these nights, he leaves his mobile at home. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want her to be able to contact him.
They haven’t had sex for three months now, but occasionally, using the TV as inspiration, he masturbates when he thinks she’s not looking, his hands down his trousers or in his pockets, fingers fumbling more and more frantically until he comes and they rest.
The meal is a lasagne, home-made chips and a salad, during which they say barely a word to each other. Afterward, still not really having made up from the previous argument, they retire to the living room. He opens a bottle of wine and pours the first glass. The stage is set.
By nine-thirty, he’s drunk. She sips a glass of wine, her second, and watches his poor attempt to pour his fifth. Some of the alcohol spills from the bottle to the wood of the floor. She sighs as he collapses into his chair and drains a third of the glass. No words are spoken for a while, which gives her time to think. If she wanted to, she could leave him. There’s nothing to stop her – he’s not given to acts of violence or anything. The truth is she’s just tired of him. She’s fed up of his drinking, their lack of any kind of communication or sex. She’s had enough, but she loves him too much to leave him. Once he gets another job, she’s sure everything will return to the way it was before, when they were young and reckless. She misses those days.
He tells her about the affair after breaking into the third bottle for his sixth glass of wine. He laughs in her face and giggles to himself as he sips from the glass, taking unstable steps backward to register her reaction. A certain injustice strikes her then. Wasn’t it she who was going to leave him? Wasn’t it she who realised that she loved him too much to break his heart like that? And now he tells her this. She’s in her twenties, apparently, and they’ve been seeing each other for four months. He tells his wife that the reason he stopped having sex with her was for fear of calling out the wrong name in bed – this young girl is just so much better than her.
As he giggles again and turns away from her, she slowly and silently picks up the three-quarters-full wine bottle from the coffee table. He’s admiring himself in the full-length mirror, smirking and sipping his wine. She holds the bottle by the neck, says his name and swings in the direction of his head. By the time he registers what she is doing, the glass of the bottle connects with his head and he goes down hard on his knees. The bottle smashes and she drops the part of it that she is holding. His blood leaks from the wound she made with the bottle, as if his head were a dripping tap. Her eyes flash dangerously in the mirror in front of her as she smoothes out her dress; tidies her hair slightly. She knows she should phone for an ambulance, but instead she picks up her own glass of wine and takes a sip, smiling.
The truth hurts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)