MORNING

Dust

MORNING

God I feel like shit. My head is twice the size it should be. My tongue lies limply in my mouth, swollen and blocking breathing, my lips are numb. Wayne is still passed out. For a second I panic as much as my brain will allow me, I drop my head against his chest, he is still breathing, and he’s warm.

He is not arranged on the bed the way dead bodies are anyway. He is relaxed, in repose. He isn’t stiff, rigor mortis. Tiny coffin’s, white cases, wreaths of baby’s breath.

There is a glass mirror, scoured with faint lines so you can’t see yourself properly. A little habit I acquired from Kevin. I don’t remember inviting Wayne to stay; maybe he was to fucked to leave.

Maybe I fucked him too much for him to be able to leave. I can taste dust in my mouth, feel gritty grains of sand in the bed, all you can do in the face of the morning after is shower and eat.

I have the water cold until I start to shiver. I feel no better; I wish I were sleeping. I don’t remember bringing out the mirror, I don’t even remember buying the stuff. I remember losing the game, a bar, and the taxi ride here.

No food, there is a fucking surprise. I don’t keep anything here it would just end up being roach food, worm food. I should, I pause in the doorway half dressed, what was I doing?

“Adam?” I turn to Wayne, disheveled, clinging to the door; he has a bruise on the side of his face. I wonder where….

“Adam?” Wayne’s voice is all scratchy, I can see more bruises, I wonder why…

“Adam?”

“Yes.” Out-loud-talking I can do that.

“What is the time?”

“Fucked if I know.” I look at Wayne. “Go have a drink and sleep some more, I’ll get…” and I point over my shoulder, “the stuff from…” I gesture more, at the door, at the away from here place.

He shrugs. “I feel like death.” His voice is soft and I realise it is little used, I talked last night, I gasped last night, and I fucked last night. I shudder at his words.

“I’m going for a bit.” I finally say, but Wayne has already turned away, holding the wall all the way back to the bed I can hear him moan as he lies down. Well he should drink water, he would feel better, water and orange juice I think and I leave.

I ignore the black fingerprints on the white paint of the door; I wipe my hand on my pants from how greasy the handle feels.

I am half way down the road when I realise I should have taken my car, but then I would probably just crash it. Besides, I laugh, I don’t have a car here. I had already had too much to drink before we came here. The taxi to my place we were carrying bags of bottles. I tripped over them, all empty, on the way out the door.

I make it to the end of the street before I feel my stomach heave and sweat starts to run down me, on my back and under my hairline. I stop for a minute gasping leaning against the stone wall surrounding someone’s garden.

The garden is listless under weeds; really it is patches of dry dirt between uninterested plants. A cracked concrete path leading up to the porch. A one-eyed cat with ginger fur sits sentry.

I pause there, collecting my thoughts, trying to breathe through it. It is an effort to get up but it is better to walk it off then remain crouched here, wavering over the garden gnomes, under the watchful eye of the sorceress sitting regally on the chipped paint of the veranda.

I wait at the lights where the cars are kicking up dust into the air.

The peasants are going off to work; they are eating breakfast bagels in their air-conditioned cars while I slump against a telephone pole. I laugh loudly into the car exhaust, and I have more money than them.

I am a hot sweaty mess and they are poised and perfect, they are clean clothes and I lurk in sweatpants on street corners.

Truly the best joke of all. I have everything they could want. A job I love, a perfect home with a beautiful wife and perfect children, sets of plates and cutlery, all clean and buffed every night with soft cloths, stored safely every evening. They are driving for this and that and the other thing as I wait here in exile waiting for the prince to come home from the wars and save the kingdom.

I turn my head enough to read the ragged posters people have attached to the telephone poles. Lost cats, a nature walk, earn money from home. The lady with the baby carriage pushes past me and onto the road. I follow her. Giggling at her giggling child. Perched up looking at the world around him, bright blue eyes behind fair lashes, dressed in blue. I have some of those, somewhere. Somewhere between heaven and hell. I should put his name on bits of paper. Someone might find him for a reward, a king’s ransom, bring him home.

I am not waiting for anything, I am going for something, and I am going for food, for sustenance, daily bread.

Food to sustain life even as you can’t breathe in the deadly air. I can feel my shirt sticking to my back, god I can never get used to the heat here.

I have had dreams of holding hands with my children and walking on the beach. But there is a hole in the line where one should be. I try to not breathe too much, feeling the day swim around me. I don’t even look at what they pass me at the café thing, I just point randomly and food and water and pop appear. I throw money at them, racing through the grimy glass doors with my heart in my mouth. I am half way back to my place before I can slow down. This air here is not fit to be breathed, let alone gasped.

On the beach you would have to dodge danger anyway. Broken bottles, syringes in this part of town, sharks teeth washed up on the beach. Broken shells could cut holes in tiny feet, tetanus, infection, eventually amputation.

School is out and children play on the basketball courts. I see two of them, one smaller than the other, slightly hiding behind his older brother as their mother yells at them to not take off without telling her. This is not a safe place to explore. This is not a safe place to breathe the air, not safe to even be born.

You have to watch them so closely or they can be stolen away. You have to keep coins under their pillows so the fairy folk don’t take them away.

It is a dry heat, the dirt in the air, settling into the rivers of sweat on my face. I climb through the piles of debris on the steps up to my hidden other home.

I do not get lost on my way back although I don’t pay attention to where I am going. When did this second home become an automatic trail for my feet? I paced the hospital corridors so many times I can re-trace those paths in my sleep. I cough up the sand and the dust and walk in. I dearly hope that Wayne has found his way home. I leave money lying around to be “discovered” by the boys from the beach.

I hope there will be nothing to deal with.

He is sleeping.

Close enough to being gone. It is a very long sleep, I told my little girl, a type of endless, sunless rest. Where you lie in a comfortable bed with your favourite toys and dream of peaceful things. He has peaceful, I am in pieces.