Imagine Tales

As consciousness swirled back to Darren, he felt about six foot under, in the grave of his own digging. When will the maggots come and take what is left of his flesh, to release him to another existence, a second chance to feel alive? He looked up at the ceiling of his bedsit. The ceiling was a murky yellow colour, years of smoke and living had produced a masterpiece up there, and he could see patterns and shapes on the blotches and damp stains. He saw a barren desert with small settlements of mould. As he stared, the ceiling had moved. This was normal, the visual distortions of so-called reality brought on by his choice of addiction, if he could call it a choice now. The atmosphere in the little room had become oppressive, the air heavy and difficult to breathe. The cupboard loomed over Darren, its doors slightly ajar. His mind started to play tricks – something in the closet was looking out, one eyeball peered from the crack. Its iris studied Darren on the floor in his sorry state.  He could see the thing in the closet looking at the puddle of piss on the floor between his legs, the acrid smell making him feel like an incontinent old person who belonged in care. Darren looked away from his mind’s invention of self-judging, knowing it is just his head messing with itself.

His eyes traced back to the ceiling and its swirling desert storms, and as he stared harder, the lines of yellow started to move. The shades changed colour, only slightly, hints of other colours mixing in with the tobacco yellow. Shapes were forming, they formed creatures from the dark places. He could hear voices hissing and wet tendrils slithering like eels caught in a net. Darren felt a dead weight all over his body, more than is usual for his state, his brain ached and thumped. He closed his eyes to the forms on the ceiling, the darkness engulfing his brain, as did the entities he was trying to hide from. He could see them clearly now, no longer were they patterns on a stained ceiling but images in his head. They looked too real to be the drugs, the edges too clear and crisp, the detail intensely sickening. These creatures with drool falling from salivating mouths, between razor-like teeth. Their eyes bulging from half decayed sockets and stems, tendrils reached out to grab at him, he could feel the cold, damp secretions of these monsters. The smell that came with them was worse than any cesspit he had called home over the years. It felt like barbed wire being pulled through his nose and throat, his stomach convulsed and he vomited, still the stench was drawn into his lungs, his eyes started to stream. The noise they made became louder and louder, it made his ears hurt and the intense riot of screaming, insane laughter and stomach-wrenching noises overtook his senses, it felt like his head would explode. He continued staring at the evil which clawed at him, the smell burned his insides, the primeval grunts and groans too loud.  Darren screamed and opened his eyes. They were gone, it was just the same old yellowed ceiling, no monsters, no pounding noises and no vile smell, just him and his room. Darren breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He noticed the puddle between his legs was growing as his mind and body relaxed and escaped into unconsciousness.

Darkness had fallen by the time Darren woke up. He could feel stinging on his thighs, remembering that he had pissed himself. Suddenly, Darren remembered the ceiling and the horrors he had seen. He looked up and started to shake, and then relaxed when he saw his ceiling was still just the ceiling and not horrific entities trying to take his pointless life to another place, a place worse than this. He got up and put the light on, a dull light spreading across the room. He went to the cupboard and opened it, screaming as he fell to the floor expecting to see glistening teeth surrounded by decaying lips, wanting to smother him in fatal kisses. Darren lay there for a few seconds, then realised that what had come from the cupboard was only junk. He started to laugh, more of a delirious giggle, growing louder until his chest started to hurt, but the laughter would not stop. A coughing fit took over the insane laughter and Darren forced himself to calm down and sit up. He started to wonder if he was finally losing it, too much heroin and too much paranoia. Leaving the contents of the cupboard on the floor, he stood up and shuffled to bathroom to run himself a bath.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

The tap dripped repeatedly, as it had done all night and the night before that, as it had done for weeks now. The water droplets had become a repetitive beat, the beating of a solitary drum, reminiscent of the last beat to be heard before criminals were hung in old London. Darren stared at the drips, watching for them to fall and disappear. He had stared at the tap now for a couple of hours, looking deeply at the lime scale which had built up around the drain hole. It’s porous miniature landscape showed hills and caves all in a scaly white-brown colour. The surface looked like his life, potentially clean white mixed with a brown sludge and full of holes. It looked like hardened heroin – there was his brown sludge, too many days and nights lying in his own faeces with his mind in that place that hides so much of his fucked up excuse for a life since he became a so-called man. The holes in his life mixed in with the dream induced shit, those holes of a caring woman, not the whores or rabid junkies he had quelled his urges with all those months ago. It had been too long now, but he didn’t care any more, those blurred evenings were stale now, as was he.

The only reaction he showed now was either tears, violence or silence. He felt numb to anything that life could throw at him, nothing mattered any more. Well, apart from the numerous people who wanted him dead, including himself.  But that was his choice, not anyone else’s. That’s unless God got in way, if he can? It was his choice when to extinguish his life. This was an insane stand considering he knew of at least one hit have been put out for his life. The problem he had was that his soul-destroying habit cost money. It’s a catch 22, you’re too trashed or ill to earn money; at least legally, anyway.  Mugging and robbery usually worked, but these days it’s not enough money and you usually end up running from guns protecting their owners’ homes and purses. He tried drug running a few times, but temptation got too much and a non-delivery earned his first hit to be taken out on him. The police got involved when the hitman fucked up and shot a kid dead, while only crippling Darren’s leg. Once in hospital, he told the police that he knew nothing. Then they showed him a photo of himself alongside spent cartridges, the photo taken from a distance and obviously without his consent, more like a paparazzi shot or surveillance. Darren broke down and told them everything, and once he was healed the police approached him again, this time they offered cash and protection in return for information.

It was easy money for stitching up mates, not that they were mates, only associates. Any one of them would stab you in the back and sell your clothes if they could get scag for them. But the police weren’t interested in punters, they wanted the dealers. Those who served death or salvation at a price, depending on who you spoke too. He had given them names and details, enough to put many of them away. As tax payers’ money rolled in along with seized goods, so the enemies built up along with the paranoia. Now his front door has not been opened for over a month. The stash that Darren had stockpiled to keep him going, while he hid and tried to find a way to escape from the hitmen, was rapidly depleting, only enough left for a day at the most. Darren felt panic spread through him like a bush fire – he can’t run out now, by now most people knew of his dealings with the law and he will only get a kicking or worse if he tries to get any more scag. That was it, he needed to relax again. He forced his eyes away from the dripping tap and walked over to the small table. He looked at the burnt spoon and the needle, and in less than three minutes Darren was on the floor. The needle dropped from his veins with a little squirt of blood. Something in the room breathed in anticipation.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

The boy ran into the classroom, his class friends sat at individual desks looking down at the books in front of them. No one looked up at his manic entrance, as if he was not there. The teacher leant against her desk at the front of the class, also reading from the same book as the children, but she read it aloud; or so it seemed. Her lips moved as her eyes scanned from left to right, but he could not hear the words. The noise was there, but faint and garbled –  he knew he should be able to understand, but it was as if this reality was now out of reach for him, a veil had fallen between him and them.

The boy fell to the ground, his back sliding down the wall, removing the edges of dry paint cracks, revealing dark red brickwork underneath. He looked around the room at everyone. Not one glance of acknowledgement from any of them, even those he counted as friends. Why had the teacher not seen him? She must have seen his distress, his terror, and like adults do, come to the rescue and make it all better, make the bad ‘it’ go away.

It all had become too much, the familiarity of what was his normal day no longer his to seek comfort in. The boy knew he was alone as he lowered his head into his huddled arms, tears streaming down his cheeks, his ability to act with composure gone. He was alone now; knowing only that ‘it’ was getting closer and closer.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4