by Sean Portland

Created on: December 22, 2008   Last Updated: October 27, 2009

Mashed


Do you know that place between dreams and consciousness, the hypnopompic haze, where emerges the dismay that you are still you, that nothing's changed, that the world you left when you closed your eyes is the same world you're about to wake up to? A great part of me was to remain there, always, as though my physicality was a holographic projection, and the real me was wandering around a strange inner maze of oblique self-perceptions. Lost, indifferent, just humouring my apparent existence, playing an endless, no-stakes game of poker with myself on the inside of a giant cylindrical mirror.

~

It was a Friday. Which made no difference at all. All I wanted to do was get fed, get stoked and get stoned, and that wasn't difficult to do on any day of the week. The difficult part was getting out of bed. For a while I just lay there smoking cigarettes, anxiously wondering where the hell I'd been the night before.

Drawing a blank, I wrenched my body from the mattress and found my way into a pair of creased up Iceberg jeans. I really couldn't remember. The Visage Club, was it? The Bumble Bar? I slid two clammy hands into my back pockets, fumbling for a receipt or a promotion's flier, producing the torn-off corner of a beer mat. Written on it, some girls name and a phone number, underlined with neat little cross-kisses. I flipped it over; it was a Guinness mat, could have come from any bar in the city.

Casting it into the wilderness of socks and crap that was my ever-rising bedroom floor, I dug into my front right pocket and yanked out my wallet, a red leather Freitag which cost more than it ever usually carried. Keys were missing though. No hassle, if I made it to bed then they'd be around here somewhere. I'd either dent the sole of my foot or listen for the clink in the washing machine.

Before I could find a t-shirt that didn't stink, a pair of heavy fists started pounding the door like a silverback gorilla pounds it's chest.

Yeah, it's a door, it has a handle

I wasn't in the mood for this, my throat felt like I'd swallowed a cup of sawdust.

Good thing it was Rob. Rob always wore those arresting, smiley eyes, like they had some odd ability to catch and diffract all the light in the room. Or maybe it was just his daily diet of water bongs glazing him over. I liked him from day one.

EZ geez, I'm out of Rizzlarrrrrr Sort it out

He always talked like an MC, kind of made me feel like I should too, but I'd only end up sounding like a dick.

Yeah, giz a sec. Just woke up

I turned

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