Friday Morning, shutting down

Tchocky

Fade In. The windows swung into twos and threes, the leaves beyond into a painful number of twisted green. Colm grunted, and measured his surroundings carefully. He was on the couch, in front of the TV, and about to die. Rolling onto his back, the kitchen rocketed towards the ceiling and stayed up there. He was on the floor, in front of the TV, and about to die. Each taste bud was its own Sahara, trapping another Englishman and bleaching him to a dry death. His eyes were working independently, trading quality for quantity. What was last night? Thursday, most likely, barring catastrophe. He abandoned this path as soon as he started, memory would come later. All in good time. Coffee was needed now. Every morning so far told him water. Water and bed until lunchtime.

He surfaced, clawing along the back of an armchair towards the sink. Tipping far too much coffee into the pot, clicking the kettle on with a hand that flopped like a dead fish, he waited. There was no milk in the fridge. No milk and a rotten smell. So there probably was milk, then. Raw coffee acid wouldn’t help his boiling stomach. Milk was needed. Brendan was needed. Pounding on his door, until the sound split in half and swung back to echo twice as loud. Newton’s cradle had nothing on this. A trail of red ants were marching from a blue hill on the back of his hand.

-What is it? Oh, morning. You look like ****, you know that?

- Yeah, I know. Listen, there’s nothing in the fridge, and the kettle’s on. I can’t leave the house for another few hours. Would you?

- Alright, do you have any money?

- I lost my wallet, I think. Well, it’s gone anyway.


He’d been bleeding again. Why he kept this up after the appointment, after the visit, Brendan couldn’t say. It had become a theme of the flat over the last few weeks. Colm existed on life support, left by himself he’d drink through his skin. Drink and meds swelled to fill days. God knows, he’d given up on college months ago.

The birds were silent, obviously it wasn’t spring yet. The sky pressed down grey and close, the Earth's polystyrene office ceiling tiles. Years ago there’d been a nightclub fire, those tiles had burned. The firemen always said to lie down, that’s where the last of the oxygen would be. To lie down while someone else got you out of there. Well they had lain down, noses to the floor, while the carbon monoxide rolled down the walls from melted tiles, heavier than air. And that’s how they were found, a dancefloor full of bodies ready for burial, labour-saving deaths. None were burned.

- 1.59

- Don’t lie down

- What?!

She was staring intently at him, waiting. Sorry dear, this won’t be an interesting work experience. Brendan shook his head and handed over a two-euro coin.


Walking the hundred yards back to the flat, Brendan couldn't shake the dread that hung like a cobweb across the door. He knew exactly what he'd find inside. Another resolution, dissolved in aspirin over an afternoon, discarded by sundown.

Colm twitched, waiting. He followed the ants along his forearm, to where they had dripped from his elbow over someone, something. The blood had dried, but not stopped. Slowly, new trails were marked between his knuckles and fingers, across his spattered jeans and onto the dusty floor. No need to get up. Brendan would be back any minute, then he'd fix it. There were bandages in the bathroom, more than enough. And plenty of pills to calm him down, to thin it down. Maybe he'd let this one bleed out.

Brendan fumbled for his keys. The campus apartment doors always locked behind, it was supposed to be for security. Who was kept out, he didn't know, and didn't care. Somewhere between swapping milk wallet and keys, with a foot wedged in the door, the 2 litres of skim burst on the floor, drowning a new pair of shoes. There was nothing else for it, he'd have to get another.