now ::
inventory ::
cast ::
prologue ::
rings ::
notes ::
profile |
addict It is less a flat than a bedsit. Less a bedsit than a cupboard. The walls are a sickly pale lemon, which Ophelia is in the process of covering with bright wrapping paper. Multicoloured dots and squares and swirls. Like a beautiful migraine. The couple upstairs do nothing but argue. Scream. Thump. Scream. Ophelia saw the woman coming up the stairs with a bag from the offlicence. Bottles clunking against each other. She thinks they're both alcoholics. That makes sense to me. If I loved an addict, I'd be an addict too. How else would you cope? How else would you enter their world? I go to work in a headscarf, wisps of magenta hair peeking from underneath. I've got a data entry gig and I don't want to be noticed. I take up smoking because there's nothing else to do in breaks and it's the only way you get to talk to anyone. An Asian boy with a sweet smile tells me I look cool. When the Australian girl from downstairs asks us - Are you...? we giggle. - Sometimes, I say. - When we're drunk, Ophelia adds. I'm always tired. I lie on my narrow bed listening to Giovanni's voice on the phone. I love you. I miss you. Come home. A lullaby I'm not allowed to fall asleep to. A siren luring me back to the rocks. I cry because I know I can't save him before I've saved myself. Before attempting to live. |
hosted by diaryland design by migraine designs image by intertiastock.xchng003 |