Nightly Creatures

Shouting is the only way we hear each other over the distance that has come between us. The argument ends in the same way; her arms crossed, tears in eyes and me slamming the door on my way to Saintly Stan’s Bar n’ Grill.

Glass to my lips like a kiss once known, I drink. Half a bottle in he cuts me off, the bastard; I pay the tab and amble away. The streets are a wet night of passion; huddled figures dance, as the rain soaks their bones, from one end to the next.

I make for the comforting shelter of an all-night liquor store. The clerk barely acknowledges my existence but hands over a bottle of cheap vodka.

I stumble out, booze in hand, into some bad tempered youths, one takes exception and pulls a crooked blade on me, grinning I tell him where to stick it. His friends hold him back; I ready the bottle like a club, nothing would be more pleasing than beating this anal stain out of my misery. 

Why did she ever have to meet such a creature as I?

Disappointingly, they clear off. I find a lonely bus bench and begin the serious business of drinking. Halfway through a skirt too short for this weather starts asking me questions I have no answers too. She hands me a bag of white powder and I wave her off, but not before she takes my whole wallet as payment.

I do the coke. It all but fucks me up in a whizzing tantrum that batters the inside of my head. Finally it overwhelms me, I throw up, mostly on the pavement. It all goes black.

When I come to it’s on the cold vinyl of my kitchen floor.  My vision clears, she’s lying motionless in a pool of her own blood, brains and skull. The hangover numbs the shock and dulls my reaction.

Still if I ever loved her I would be holding her and screaming in agony, instead I dial 999 and fall heavily into my favourite chair and wait. Why did she ever have to meet such a creature as I?