Possibly Triggering - New Episodic Story *new Updates*
Hi all. As I mentioned a bit ago, I've been working on a new story. No title yet. Susie's Doll is still very much active, sorry for the lack of updates, have been really busy with uni and this and other stuff.
Anyway, first chapter of this new thing below. Like Susie's, I'm gonna do it episodically, releasing a new chapter when it's done. If you've a few minutes, please have a read, keep reading if you like it, and let us know what you think!
Ta!
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Exeunt
She was dead before her face hit the carpet.
Not that her actual death matters, really. She’d been long gone for months. The simple ceasing of the beating heart was just someone closing the door on the way out, shutting out any drafts that remained. It was a blessing in many ways, for us, for her too, probably. It meant we’d be able to forgive and, maybe, one day in old age, forget.
Still. What to do. This plot wasn’t orchestrated or cleverly conceived. Even though, in retrospect, it was always inevitable, I confess I had not taken the time to cover the room with polyester sheets. The blood was splattered, the pool spreading.
I paced a little, my footsteps carefully choreographed with the ticking of the old clock in the corner. It was nearly half past two and people would be home by the time dawn broke. Not that people wouldn’t find out anyway, but a familiar corpse lying in a pool of scarlet may not be the preferred sight on entering your front room. I nudged her head over to one side with my shoe. Her jaw hung loose and blood trailed from her nostril and dripped into her mouth. Her eyes were open, and already glazed. I always did wonder why a cadaver’s eyes glaze over, instead of simply drying out.
I hated her right then. But there was no time for petty emotion.
I walked through the kitchen and opened the cellar door, flicking the light switch on with the opposite hand. ‘Cellar door’ is supposed to be the most aurally pleasing phrase in the English language, I recalled for a second, momentarily unfocussed on the task in hand. In there, beyond the flattened, broken door at the foot of the staircase, I grabbed a damp, stained rug from the floor and jogged back up to the front room. The scene had started to smell, a strange, not unpleasant, metallic scent that seemed to drift in and out of the room. From next door, the music continued to thud through the structure of the buildings. I hoped no one had heard the struggle over the din. It was comfortingly unlikely, given the volume.
Shifting the armchair with my leg and laying the rug flat against the floor, I rolled the body roughly over and began to craft my parcel. The musty stench of the old carpet overpowered the previous odour. I began to drag. She was heavy, especially wrapped in her damp new attire. No need to go too far. For now, the cellar would do. I kicked, hard, and her corpse cascaded, slumping, down the flight of stairs.
Next I went over to the upright piano next to the table and began to heave it towards the front door. The feet scuffed the carpet and for a second I halted, annoyed at the marks, before realising the triviality of such thoughts. I worried the piano might not hold against the force of a group of people, given the relative ease of dragging it across a room, but then I did have adrenaline on my side. I pushed it close against the front door, which I ensured was securely locked.
I looked once more at the clock. Getting on for three. Better be out of the house in the next couple of hours. Still, I deserved a quick break at least. I flicked the power button of the CD player – a classical compilation – and grabbed two bags of white powder from under the sofa cushion. I racked up a line of each on the CD case and took one up each nostril. The confident rush of the cocaine hit me in seconds and I considered, momentarily, getting back up and cleaning up a bit more. I decided against it, and sat back, relaxing. The ketamine would kick in soon, taking me elsewhere, bringing me down from the rush of the coke into the blissful, disassociated couch-lock I longed for. Besides, I didn’t want to fall and break an ankle without realising. That would make everything a lot more difficult.
Don’t worry, by the way. She wasn’t leaving anybody behind, any family to mourn, any parents to lament the passing of their sweet daughter long before their own demise. She was a lone ranger, for the most part. The solitary owl.
If only she were that wise.
Two hours later I would shut out all the lights, ascend the stairs and climb out of my bedroom window and scale down the drainpipe, and drive in search of my life again. But I couldn’t leave without an explanation. I picked up a wad of post-it notes and a half-snapped ballpoint pen, and, considerately and carefully, penned out the events across seventeen sheets, which I would stick to the top of the piano for the others to read when they finally managed to get in through a window. The blood would have to stay.
Last edited by Lewis The Second : 25-06-2008 at 11:56 AM.
Reason: Updates
I'm not usually a fan of things written in the first person. But this isn't bad at all.
Don't be fooled by my smooth skin. The deepest scars are the ones unseen.
Remember compliments you received, forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how..~ Baz Lurhman.
Letting it get to you - You know what that's called? Being alive. Best thing there is. Being alive right now that's all that counts. ~ Doctor Who "The Doctors Wife" 06.November.2011
Do you ever feel like you’re making an actual place seem awkward?
That’s how I felt when I first moved to Manchester. I was used to the tacky suburban glamour of north London where I grew up and spent the majority of my ‘finer’ years, followed by the snail-paced, pseudo-city lifestyle of York, where I studied chemistry for three years, emerging with a 2:2 bachelor’s honours. The level was evidence of my boredom. During my first year, I’d rarely so much as missed a mark.
Manchester was different and, to begin with, not what I felt I needed. York had suffocated me, and I was too young at the time to truly experience and appreciate what London had to offer. Here was different, but in an unnerving way. It felt like a hub to a thousand different dimensions, but a hub everyone knew already and had been using for centuries. I was the new run-around boy on board, fresh out of college, eager to learn but essentially lost in the endless corridors and rooms. But moreover, I felt like I was a bad example of a glistening city. I was making the rest look bad. I was stopping the world from functioning. It’s worth noting that I rarely stepped foot outside my house as a kid down south. London, had I truly explored it, alone, not guided by the hand of my father (not that he did much guiding), I wager I’d have felt a little overwhelmed. The centre of London was always something I’d despised, anyway. From my occasional visits, I wasn’t missing out on much other than a fake plastic lie of a city: an emotionless simulation of a utopian world gone wrong. Plus I remember it smelling a lot, and its egocentric workforce population disagreeable at best.
I was bored, that’s what it was. Beyond bored, and such a horrible ennui made me agitated. In my haste to run away into a new life, I’d changed the setting but not the set. It wasn’t the city that was dull, nor had it ever been. It was me. So, setting off in search of cheap thrills, I turned to booze and bars, and, inevitably, companionship followed. The first person I remember meeting was a chap called Lazo in a dingy little boozer – the name escapes me – on the edge of the city. He had a tall black Mohawk, three rings in his left nostril and a tattoo of a bee on his cheek. Not a big scary hornet to go along with the rest of his image, you understand, but a fuzzy, fluffy, cartoon bumblebee.
Before he even spoke to me, and despite my reasonably extensive travels, I felt I had never met anyone like this before. When he did finally approach me – “They should definitely, definitely grow more coconuts over here,” was his opening line – my suspicion was confirmed. Lazo wasn’t his real name, of course. He refused to divulge his given initials, even, claiming he had ‘entirely forgotten’ who he ‘used to be’. He put careful emphasis on the long /a/ sound each time he spoke his name. It was much later before I learned there was no r in sight.
That night we spoke about everything from sport to supergovernmental politics, from travels to Travelodges. It was fascinating. I remember little of the specifics, stumbling around in a drunken frenzy for most of it and hyperspeed talking for half an hour each time he offered me a key of his high-grade cocaine, bought from the same outfit that the Happy Mondays use or used to use. We must have stayed until three, maybe four in the morning, long after the staff had given up trying to get us to leave, I know that much.
It was a fabulous time.
Of course, I’d done the party thing for years and my social calendar wasn’t as empty as perhaps I’ve made out. I was doing stuff, but I wasn’t doing anything in particular. That’s where the boredom had set in. It was the typical university scene, one I subscribed to all too quickly. We got pissed and took drugs and had sex and tried our hands at being in a band. None of it led to anything other than a lightweight wallet, a bad headache and a draw full of lists entitled ‘What we were going to do…’ From Student In London to Student in York, nothing had changed. From there to Unemployed Twentysomething In Pub With Bizarre Stranger, there seemed to be a noticeable shift.
I ran into Lazo again a few times, out and about, with friends (never his, naturally) or doing the shopping. I think I may have even gone for a second drink with him shortly after, but my memory may be playing tricks. Ultimately, we lost touch fairly quickly.
I wonder if he ever pictured me, in two years time, racing towards the M26 with blood on my hands, a nose full of ket and a dead girlfriend lying in my cellar back home after I slashed her throat with a vegetable knife and roller her up in a carpet. After all, this is hardly a Sid and Nancy story. I could at least have the balls to up the ante to heroin and die over an overdose in a few days. I don’t have the crippling amnesia to boot, either. If only.
What was this new life, anyway? What was I hurtling towards at pushing, shìt, a hundred? A hundred and ten? It was hard to see straight still, and I couldn’t quite get my foot to grips with the pedals as well as I’d hoped. Should have waited another half hour or so to straighten up. But then, the others would probably have been on their way back by now. Definitely didn’t want to be there when that scene kicked off. Noah would probably try to exercise his manly nature and smash the door down with his foot, but would probably break his ankle or at least sprain it as the piano refused to budge behind it. Scott might just go straight for the window – always the smart one. Amy would probably cower in the bushes, sobbing, knowing something wasn’t quite right. When they finally got in they’d see the blood and assume the worst, though I liked to think they’d be relieved not to find the body. Would they call the police? Would they run? Smart money says they ran too. Wouldn’t want any of the extra hassle.
It was funny, though, how history was repeating itself in some sort of deranged, sub-metaphorical way. Two years ago I was ‘leaving my old life behind’. This time, it was for real, for serious. Zero margin of error. I indicated left, rolled the Honda into the hard shoulder, and rooted through the glove compartment for the A-Z.
Don't be fooled by my smooth skin. The deepest scars are the ones unseen.
Remember compliments you received, forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how..~ Baz Lurhman.
Letting it get to you - You know what that's called? Being alive. Best thing there is. Being alive right now that's all that counts. ~ Doctor Who "The Doctors Wife" 06.November.2011
Take me away, I just want out from this self-imprisoned self-made Hell. Don't be surprsed, this is your mind coming to life by self-sacrifice. This tragedy of death will walk hand in hand with every thought of regret. Blame yourself for what you've become. The mind is a powerful thing set to self-destruct.
~I, Dementia - Whitechapel~
Uppy-doodles. Vague trigger warning for substance abuse, but then you've probably figured out so far that it's a book about drugs, so expect that a lot.
Comments, suggestions and feedback, as usual, very much appreciated.
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Baccardi and Coke
The story doesn’t necessarily have a definitive beginning or end, but this saga all started three days ago when Emilie Granger was accosted by a member of door staff at the Night and Day and found in possession of over a thousand pounds worth of cocaine.
I sat in the corner and watched, sipping my mixer. It was already past the point where I was prepared to take a bullet for Emilie, or even intervene in a situation like this one. I’d seen this scenario play out a hundred times before and it always ended the same way: bouncer empties the dealer’s pockets, kicks them out and bars them, then gives the gear to the in-house salesperson. Not the end of the world and usually no police involved. But Oldham Street is a recreational drug user’s haven, and if you’re selling, its bars and clubs are the place to be. Night and Day was an important location for business. It was not a bar to get banned from.
At this stage, of course, I didn’t know the full extent of the problem. We used to regularly walk around with a few grams or pills on us, and that was Emilie’s regular stock even now. But a grand is a lot of drug money, and something the door staff have no choice but to inform the authorities about. I knew something was going particularly wrong when I saw Emilie’s skinny, 5’4” figure elbow the hulk of a bouncer in the chest, land him with a sweet head-butt and shoot for the door. All the security staff had been so caught up at this point with the trouble inside the venue that they’d neglected to keep anyone on front of house. Within seconds they were after her, but someone fell over and left a trailing leg, and the three black-clad bruisers fell like dominos into a pile-up on the dance floor.
I turned to Noah who was half watching and half losing himself in the music, a stupid, blank gurn on his face. “Noah, what the fu*k, man?” I said, and he snapped back into the room looking dazed. “Noah, what the fu*k’s going on? She’s never darted like that.”
“Probably some big-boned freak threatening to call the cops,” he slurred. “Don’t go after her yet.”
“She looked in fu*king trouble, seriously. She doesn’t run like that. She knows they’re not going to waste that much time over a few drugs.”
“Call her, then.” Noah turned away again. He was so ruined he couldn’t even stop his big, balding head from nodding along to every kick drum of the music. No use waiting around with him, I thought. He was hardly going to be much help, anyway.
“Noah, I’m gonna… Noah!” He hadn’t noticed I was talking. “Mate, I’m gonna go after her, this doesn’t look good.”
“Jesus, man, way to get yourself caught up in it. Just leave her. She knows what she’s doing.” He turned away again and resumed his groove.
“Noah, seriously, something’s not right.”
He span around like a waltzer ride. “Alright! Jesus. Go. But don’t be fu*king obvious about it. If they come over here I’m fu*ked too. We can’t all get barred from the place.”
I stood up and carefully made my way to the door. The scene had calmed a little now and people weren’t staring so much. I could make a fairly inconspicuous exit, make a light-hearted joke to the door staff about local hooligans, wander around the corner and phone her. She’d probably be waiting nearby, anyway. Emilie wasn’t exactly used to running long distances.
The lights were flashing and my head was pounding now. The drink was getting to me despite my stimulant intake and the effects of my last line were diminishing quickly. Who were these horrible people, I wondered. This obscure Mancunian freak show of dancers, drinkers and divas. These sorts of places attract a mixed crowd, but the Night and Day, particularly on this occasion, didn’t showcase a good mix of party-goers. The young kids were happy to neck ten pints, stumble around, standing on people’s toes and generally getting in the way, and the overspill from Dry Bar – the ageing ravers desperately trying to keep the 80s/90s Madchester scene alive – only compounded the problem. I’d always been content sitting in the corner and minding my own business, watching Emilie and Noah ply their trade, but right now I needed out, and I needed out fast.
At last I reached the door and shot one of the bouncers, back on duty, a sympathetic smile. I walked down the road towards Hilton, trying to keep my cool amongst the hoards of people, hoping not to attract anyone’s attention as the bloke whose girlfriend just smacked the sh*t out of three enormous, triangular men and legged it into the distance. Out of sight of anybody at Night and Day, I pulled out my phone and called Emilie’s number. In my head I planned a route to walk, knowing that – should she be in real trouble and somehow I was going to be connected to it – standing around talking on the telephone may not be the best idea. Emilie answered after three rings.
“Alex, what the fu*k are you doing ringing me? Hang up!”
Good start.
“Emilie, what the fu*k? What the fu*k is going on?” Her answering style had been particularly edgy, even for her.
“I need to get the fu*k back home and work out what the fu*k to do, that’s what’s going on.” Was she really… was Emilie actually crying now?
“Ems, please. Please just tell me what’s happening. Noah said not to worry, but –“
“Noah doesn’t have anything to fu*king worry about, does he?” She was getting distraught now. This definitely wasn’t right.
“Ems…”
“Someone tipped the fu*kers off. Someone’s fu*king on to me, but in the meantime, I’m running through the city with two fu*king… empty pockets ‘cause the bastards took all the stuff, and I haven’t even paid for it, Alex… I haven’t paid for it.”
“What? Ems, it’s okay, we can scrape together whatever you’re losing, just calm down. What’s got into you?”
“Alex, we can’t.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “We can’t, okay?”
“Why?” This had happened to Noah a few months back. Ems and me chipped in a hundred each and paid the guy off. Buying large amounts of drugs on credit is a terrible habit, but while ever people had their own habits to feed, it’s easy to get a little too comfortable with it. Still, I couldn’t see the problem.
“We can’t afford it. We can’t.” Emilie had stopped crying now and seemed a little calmer, if unnervingly resigned to a tragic ending.
“Why, how much was it?”
“An once.”
”An ounce, Emilie? Jesus!”
”Okay, fu*king hell. I know, it was silly.”
“What are you doing out with an ounce? Christ, when the fu*k did you even buy an ounce?” I was being too loud and conspicuous now, I knew, but the words were flowing out uncontrollably. Noah was wrong. This was big.
“Keep your voice down, Alex. Jesus. It really has been a while for you, hasn’t it? Listen, what state are you in?”
I considered. My head was still pounding but the last thing I was thinking about now was more drugs. I was pretty hammered but under control. “I’m okay,” I told her. “Better than Noah, anyway.” I laughed. She didn’t laugh back.
“I’m gonna flag a taxi. Meet me back at home. Be fu*king quick, Alex.” Her voice was trembling again. I went for the gentle option.
“Love you, Emz.”
“Not the fu*king time, Alex,” she snarled, and the line went dead.
heyy just to let you know i've read the first chapter and intend to read the other two when I've got time/concentration.
From what I've read though, you write fantastically and I'm very impressed! Will be good to hear more.
