Even the half decent ones are being laid to rest. I read The Wasp Factory half-drunk by candlelight until it gave me nightmares. It was a strange period for me. When my eyes grew tired of reading someone else's words, I would drag out my old Remington, load it with paper, fiddle with the ribbon and start feverishly pounding at the keys in hope that I could get some words down of my own. Hoping to form sentences and paragraphs that would eventually mount up to some kind of story, something meaningful. It never really went well and the anguish of that would often give me nightmares too. I'd give up pretty quickly and would see it as a good time to sleep. To crawl between the sheets and try to get some kind of rest before my sub-conscious would start to haunt me. I got nightmares every night. Pretty bad ones that would make we wake up, bolt upright, sometimes shouting, sometimes screaming, but always sweating. There’d be so much my sheets and pillows would be soaked through. The damp made it hard to fall back to sleep, but that didn't bother me too much. I was never sure I wanted to face the terrors again, but I knew I needed the rest. I'd take a long drink of stale, four day old water from my bedside table, lay back, and hope that morning would come soon.
The dreams never seemed so bad in the daylight. Come morning, I didn't want to leave the comfort of my bed. The beckoning call of porcelain was my only motive to ever move. If I was lucky it was just to piss or shit, but in those days it seemed mostly that I needed to vomit. To then just lay there on the floor, counting the tiles and wondering what was wrong with me and what I would need to do to remove the taste of old beer from my mouth and the burn from my throat. I'd slip sluggishly down the stairs and try to justify to myself that it was okay to line my coffee with bourbon just to take the edge off the day. I knew food was the sensible choice but there was rarely ever anything in my fridge that I fancied. I tried frying eggs, but ultimately I would end up scraping the contents of the frying pan straight in to the bin, overwhelmed with disappointment and a lack of appetite. I fantasised of escaping. Getting out and embracing the world away from the confines of myself.
Outside was grey. It was autumn, when the better poets were telling me the world was alive and on fire. Multiple tones of reds, golds and browns could be seen everywhere, but all I could see was a grey death. The sky was grey. The ground was grey. The buildings were grey. What little wildlife around was dying or hiding. I was told autumn was beautiful, but no amount of beauty could save the world from the passing of time and the arrival of a new season. Death was everywhere. I was better off inside and so there I stayed, not wanting to leave the kitchen.
On one occasion, while hunting down the spatula for my daily futile attempt at cooking breakfast, I came upon a carving knife that I never used. I pulled it from the drawer and held it up to admire its shimmering power. A killing machine designed to tear flesh apart, to pull meat from bones. I then imagined sinking its sharp point into my own skin and tearing out the veins. I wondered if I had the grit and determination to go through with such an act. The worst thing that could happen would be that it would hurt - a lot - but that it would soon be over. Then there would be nothing and nothing else would matter. I had always lacked courage, and flirting with this element of danger ignited something inside of me. I stared longingly into the blade, catching my own reflection. My eyes were wide and dark, my cheeks hollow. My hair was once thick and full of life, was now thin, limp and greasy. I questioned what I had become. I immediately grew tired of all the self-involved bullshit and let the knife slip from my fingers. The clang of metal on tile echoed through the kitchen and through my head. I needed to get laid. Above all, I really needed a steak and just to write something decent.
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