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Dragons In The Walls Thump. I
wake on the floor, a couple of splinters digging into my bare back. I
lay there for a few minutes to wait for my vision to return to normal;
the trip had been quite extreme, a technicolour spray darting around me
for what may have been hours. Trips down memory lane that would’ve
made me cry if I hadn’t been high as a kite. There were even dragons
coming out of the walls. Lemmy would’ve been proud.
I
finally sit up, and see how bare my flat has become. I wasn’t so
bothered about the carpet; hell, it had been one of the first things to
go, I didn’t really need it. No-one visits these days anyway. I miss
the TV, though. When you’re unemployed, and usually far too wasted to
get round to finding a job, there’s precious little else to do but
watch the tube. Now I’ve got even less to distract me – just my
stash. It’s not a lot – the £100 I got for the TV didn’t go far
– but it’ll keep me going for the rest of the week. I try and stand
up, but the effects of the trip are still a bit too much for me, and I
grasp for the sofa; I realise that I sold it last week just before I
fall on my face. I
get up again and dust myself down. I take another look around my flat -
there’s nothing left. The floorboards are exposed and rotten with
damp; the walls are a filthy shade of cream, devoid of decoration, with
black outlines where there used to be wardrobes. There’s a massive
dent in the door; I think I must have punched it during a trip – I
don’t remember doing it, but I woke up with my left hand busted open.
I begin to ask myself how it got to be this bad, but stop myself,
knowing the answer already. The rent is due at the end of this week, and
I have nothing to my name – not a penny in my pocket, nor a thing I
can sell. Just a collection of hallucinogens that manage to keep me
alive, oblivious to every reason why I should call it quits. Bending
down, I root through my black bag of goodies and find a needle. I go
through the motions and shoot up, the slight twitch of my body knocking
the fix to the floor as I finish. Screw
this, I’m going for a walk. Maybe if it hits me outside, I’ll get a
hospital bed for a couple of days before I have to take to the streets.
At least they won’t have splinters. I throw on an old white t-shirt
and leave. The door slams behind me and I get in the lift. “Is
that you young Stanley? Just the boy I need, would you mind helping me
load up my car?” The
first thing I see as I step out of the lift is old Lydia, a neighbour of
mine from the floor below. She’s lived in this shithole for 30 years
now, and still hasn’t learned how to spot a junkie from an upstanding
citizen. She flashes a helpless smile in my direction, which looks more
like a gurn thanks to her withered face, and motions at two suitcases by
her feet. I nod blankly and pick them up for her. “You’re
so very kind Stanley,” she says as I follow her to her car. “How is
your young Rachel? I haven’t seen her around lately.” “Yeah,
she’s got… work commitments,” I mutter back. That was as close to
the truth as the old bag needed to hear. “Oooh”,
she cooed. “Well mind you don’t let her get away from you, Stanley.
She’s a lovely girl, you two make such a wonderful couple. Reminds me
of me and…” She
carries on talking to herself while I walk on with her cases, waiting
for the dragons to return. We enter the car park and she opens the boot
of her car. “Over here please, young Stanley. No, not like that, they
won’t fit.” She bends down and peers into the boot, gesturing
manically at her luggage. “Put that one over that end, and the other
next to it, so they won’t knock against anything. No, no, no – here,
let me do it.” I
stepped away from the boot, and it hit. I knew what to do. Thump. It
was late on a Friday afternoon, and the whole department was squeezed
into the tiny seminar room in the basement of the building. Idle
chit-chat filled the room, everyone glad of the excuse to get away from
working so close to the weekend. Some less social souls speculated that
we were going to be told about a special bonus; they had a point, we’d
outperformed every other branch in the country, surely that was worth
something? I wasn’t overly worried either way, I had everything I
wanted; good wages, a step away from upper management and away from the
call centre, an amazing flat, and my fiancée, Rachel. We’d met here,
and it was a whirlwind of emotion – I never thought I’d fall in love
so fast. A few more months and we’d have our own place, and it’d all
be complete. “Afternoon
everyone.” Tom
had breezed in unnoticed during my daydream, and flashed his evergreen
smile to the whole room at once. He was a member of the board, but spent
a fair amount of time down here flirting with the girls in the call
centre. I was proud to count him among my friends; he was old enough to
be my father, but it never showed in his behaviour or appearance. He sat
down on a table and faced us all, clasping his hands together as he
addressed us. “Firstly,
I’d like to congratulate you all on last quarter’s performance – I
speak for everyone on the board when I say thank you from the bottom of
our hearts.” The whole room burst into self-congratulatory applause;
Tom didn’t stop smiling throughout. “Unfortunately,
your great news comes at a time of terrible general performance in the
company. Sadly, most of our other centres were unable to match your
outstanding achievement, and profit margins are significantly down this
quarter.” There
was a hush, the group collectively unsure as to what this meant for
them. Profits were down, but it’s still a profit, right? Tom was still
smiling as if to comfort and calm us. “Due
to the company already having budgeted for higher profits,” he
continued, “the board has decided that in order to balance the books,
we must restructure the company to make it more economically viable.
I’m very sorry to say that this restructuring will mean the closure of
this centre, and the establishment of a new centre in Bombay to replace
it.” A
few pained “What?”s rang out, but most people were sat wallowing in
glum silence. Tom,
his smile having not left his face even for an instant, for fear he
would hide his glee at his bonus being unaffected, carried on for those
who could still bear to listen: “The company will be glad to aid you
in finding new jobs by providing references and agreeable severance pay.
Once again, I’m sorry to break this news to you. Have a good
weekend.” With
that he slinked out of the room, as my co-workers began to sob. Through
the window, I saw him link arms with Rachel and walk out to the lobby. Thump. Thump. Thump. The
fucking thumping of old Lydia’s body in the boot is making it
difficult to concentrate on driving – a headache is not what I need
right now. I hope blood stains and the dent her head made on the boot
aren’t that obvious when you’re doing 90 down the M23. To drown it
out, I turn up the volume on the CD player. For
a minute, I think about what to do next. “I’m pretty much on the
run,” I say to myself, stating the absolute obvious. I knew where I
was heading, at least; a certain detached house in Redhill. I see my
turn off and go down the slip road, my pondering interrupted by a
thunderous riff as I headbang towards Tom’s house. -- It’s
a quiet road, as you’d expect for the huge amount of money its
residents possess. A dozen detached houses, mocking you for not being
able to dream of such luxury. The privacy at least allows me to shoot up
again undisturbed. I see Rachel look out of a top floor window a couple
of times, but she’s never seen Lydia’s car, so has no idea that
I’m here. Presumably she’s wondering where her beloved Tom is. At
least we have that in common these days. Tom
finally pulls up – I see he’s now driving a Lamborghini, presumably
paid for by the savings my sacking produced. I look in the back of the
car for anything Lydia might have to save time; I pull out a steering
wheel lock gratefully from beneath my seat, and hop out of the car. Tom
reaches the side gate of his house before he hears me, but I’m a
little quicker than him. He doesn’t see me. Thump. “Stan,
Tom told me all about the restructuring of the company. I’m
really sorry Stan; I guess it’s no consolation that he’s promoted
me, so I’ll be kept on. But we both know what this means for our
future plans; there’s no way you’ll pull in the same kind of money
anywhere else, not the way the market is right now. Everyone’s moving
their call centres to India, Stan; it’s standard practice now.
I can’t make plans for the rest of my life knowing that we
won’t have the kind of money we were relying on. I don’t want to
live in squalor, and we know we can’t afford the places we were
looking at with just my salary.
If we have no future, we can’t have a present. I’m sorry,
Stan.
Rachel.” It
was left on the top of the lounge coffee table beside her keys, a thin
Social Security leaflet and a reminder for this month’s rent payment.
She’d already ransacked the place for what little she left here; it
was almost as if she’d been planning to leave me since we’d been
together. I
laid down on the sofa, and rolled a joint, fighting back the tears with
sheer concentration; I sucked at rolling. Later
that night, I went to my dealer’s house, and got an education. Thump. I
got the back door of the house open with a struggle. I turned back to
look at Tom; he lay face down on the grass, rivers of scarlet just about
visible in the dusk. The lock was still in my hand, and I wipe the blood
from it onto my shirt in a rough circle; not that I even know why, but
it looks cool. Walking inside, I see the kind of house I hoped to one
day own with Rachel. Even the kitchen looks incredible as I walk through
it, and reminds me of the dump I left behind a few hours ago. Man,
I need a fix. I
stumble around and find the bathroom. Sitting on the side of the bath, I
scurry through the now nearly empty bag for a needle. There isn’t one;
there’s no heroin either. I settle on a small pill of something or
other, swallow, and wander out again. As
I climb the stairs awkwardly and loudly, I begin to feel dizzy; I really
need a lie-down. This place has tons of bedrooms anyway, as long as
I’m quiet I can get away with it. Hopefully Tom didn’t make too much
noise after snuffing it and wake Rachel; last thing I need is her
shopping me to the cops while I get some shut-eye in her house. I take a
guess on one of the identikit white wooden doors, and carefully push it
open. “Tom,
honey? Is that you? What took you so long, I’ve got a surprise for
you…” Change
of plan. Thump. “So,
your last job was as a call centre manager, yes? I think I read about
that in the paper; big fuss about moving jobs to India, wasn’t it?” I
nodded – I didn’t need reminding that I’d been screwed over, I was
painfully aware of it already. The job centre dipshit carried on as if I
was supposed to care. “Well,
as you know, more and more companies are looking overseas in your line
of work,” he said, making me want to wrap his tie round his mouth and
drag his smarmy suited ass into the street. “Your experience stands
you in good stead, admittedly, but there are very few opportunities
around, especially at mid-managerial level. We’ll let you know if we
do find anything, though.” I
thought about drowning him in the toilet, but decided that he might not
actually be lying and stood up. I shook his hand, stood up and left
silently. “Oh,
Mr Grant!” the little greaseball called after me. I turned and he
continued: “Your
benefit money will be through on Monday – it comes to roughly ninety
pounds, excluding your allowances for rent and the like – and will
keep you going for the next two weeks. Do remember to attend your
appointments, else we’ll have to stop them. Is that OK?” Patronising
fuckwit. “Sure,
whatever” I grunted back, and left. I
took a box of pills out of my pocket – ‘mood enhancers’ was what
the doctor called them. The company sent me off to him just before they
sacked me, feigning some kind of concern for my well-being. These pills
were about all I had left to remind myself that I used to work for them. I
threw them in the bin in disgust, and walked home. -- I
got home to find Darren outside my door, as expected. “Nice hi-fi
man,” he said as soon as we’d stepped foot inside. “That’ll
fetch a pretty penny. So, the usual for you kid?” “Nah,”
I replied. “Give me all you’ve got, and take the hi-fi as payment if
you like it so much.” “You
sure you know what you’re doing, kid? I know you’ve had it rough and
all, but you’re not used to this shit – it’ll fuck you up.” “Nice
time for you to develop a conscience, fucker. Let’s just do this.” The
morning sunshine seeps through the curtain, and wakes me up. Rachel is
in my arms – it’s just like before. I ruffle her silky black hair
and turn her face to gaze at her; those beautiful blue eyes, scarlet
tears of happiness dried on her cheek. I kiss her broken left arm,
dangling limply over her breasts, and stand up to collect my clothes.
But what the hell, how about one more session before I leave, for old
times’ sake? My dick is already standing to attention in its red
uniform, so I throw the covers of the bed to the side. I
force myself inside her, and find myself greeted by a flesh flow of
blood from her hole. Fucking women, always bleeding at the worst time
possible. Still, no point wasting a perfectly good boner. I have my way
with her and walk out, pausing only to put on my trousers; I’ll let
the neighbours find the lying cunts, preferably with maggots crawling
out of them. I
jump into Lydia’s car and speed off down the road; the chugging of the
old car blasts noise into the suburban silence. Metallica kicks in
again, and silences the squelching thuds of the old cow in the back.
Getting back onto the motorway, I fiddle around in my black bag one last
time; it’s a dark blue tablet, and I have no idea what it is. Maybe I
should’ve let Darren tell me before I cleaned him out last time.
Still, it’ll do. I snuff it down in between throwing my head back and
forth to the cacophony blasting from the tinny car speakers either side
of me, the thunder rattling my ears as my hair flies forward in
imperfect time. My
eyes clench shut, and I let go of the wheel. Thump.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Thump. Thump. “Stan?
What the fuck are you doing here? Get out! Get out of here!” She
screamed as if I was listening. She was completely naked; hadn’t
changed a bit since I last pressed my body against hers. Obviously old
Tom was keeping her in shape. She kept her eyes on me, but her hands
grasped desperately at the cabinet beside her, trying to find some
weapon to keep me away. No chance. “Where’s
Tom?” she bellowed again. I just stood there, smiling, fixed on her
breasts. I was going to enjoy grabbing those again – taking what was
mine. “Hello
bitch,” I finally muttered. “I know I haven’t been round a lot
lately, but you know, I’ve had things to do.” I struck her round the
mouth with the wrench, in case she decided to try and scream again; she
fell down onto the bed. How convenient – my lucky day. “I promise from now on, it’ll be different baby.” I planted the metal lock between her eyes and waited for her head to stop lolling. Then we made love. Thump. The
car hit the roadside barrier at about 110, and flipped a couple of times
before it plunged into the river. It floated for some tantalising
seconds, but not long enough for me to escape; even if I wanted to, I
couldn’t. In my final few seconds on the mortal coil, I broke into a
smile. No more Rachel. No more Tom. No more fucking Lydia bumping around
the boot like hastily packed shopping. Not even absolution. Just
clarity. I shut my eyes and waited.
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