“I only come alive in moments of extreme joy, tragedy or illness. When the heroin is here, I am not, and when it is gone I wake up in pain.... all the intrusion of existence shining in my eyes and blasting through my ear drums. Sometimes I wonder, “Do I even exist at all?”
Heroinhead to his fictitious drug counsellor
* * * * *
It is 4.21am. Outside it is black... the new day has no dawn just yet. I sit on the edge of my bed smoking. On the table there are spoons, needles and lemon juice... but there is no heroin – it’s all gone. My phone is on silent and I am up to 85 missed calls and 27 text messages. My Inbox stands at 117 unread mails. On the floor there are endless wrappers from chocolate bars and cans of soft drinks. A pizza crust smiles at me. I can barely walk... my feet and legs are swollen due to all the injections of the past five days. Scars and bruises trail from my groin down to my ankle and the room smells like stale sex and overflowing ashtrays. I think about doing my filters once again... boiling up the cotton balls I draw my heroin through and straining them through a 5ml syringe. But I don’t do that, it would be the third time and would only result in a pale yellow water. Instead, I unscrew the caps from 3 bottles of 40ml methadone and down the lot. Within an hour the effect will kick in... just in time for the early birds and the sun. I know I will not do much... just nurse my wounds, curse my throat and stomach and groan about how awful I feel. I think about watching a film but the DVD player seems so far way and so low down. Anyhow, in such times nothing can occupy me better than sleep... and sleep will come, I know that. But she will come with heavy smells, age old fears and hyper-realistic nightmares... tormenting me into wishing I was awake. I will be paralysed between two hells and myself, sweating out a weeks worth of junk in Kafka's castle. This is me, Shane X, 12,291 days into my death, waiting for the sun...
Take care All & Best Wishes, Shane. x
