Untitled extract
Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 11:14 am
It was beneath the surreal light of the early morning hush that I made my way through town and onto the bridge. My legs, working in independence, lunged at passers by like a dog on a leash. They wearily staggered by like clockwork soldiers, their eye balls periodically dotting toward mine before retreating; defeated. I rolled my head back to reveal my pupils, black and wide, my pale, ashen face and disjointed grin... I was barely in control, the night had been long and strange, god knows what had happened.
I heard mine name, twice, maybe three times; it took a while to make the association with that word and this aching sack of flesh that hung form me. I walked like a broken robot to the edge of the bridge and dropped my head over letting the sling shot of gravity pendulum my neck from side to side. Focusing, I spotted two figures; Chapter 12… and… he was with another. It was Delroy. But he was standing in the mud of the river banks.
“What, do you... doing!?” I clattered like a brain dead Scouser. My last syllable spiraled up in pitch uncontrollably before I realized and pulled my chin to my neck for safety and repose.
“Fishing!” Chapter grinned.
My head lunged forward as I fell into a psychotic bout of cackled hysterics, my stomach contorted, my head flailed, I wheezed and eventually stammered back like a ninety year old attempting to regain equanimity. What seemed like moments later I appeared behind them at the fence of the river, it was foul smelling, a dark muddy grey and contained the majority of a local supermarkets trolleys. Since I’d lived in the town, I’d too frequently seen search and rescue helicopters hovering, scouring the waters with their lights, searching for some sign of the nameless and faceless figure that had jumped minutes before hand... they never made the papers. As I walked by I’d look down and scanned the water for bodies. I’d never seen one.
Delroy, knee deep in thick grey mud, was searching around like a terrier, digging test holes with his bloated hands and then moving on to another. I liked him, but kept him at a distance. He’d broken into my mate Dan’s flat whilst he was recovering in hospital from an overdose. It had been Delroy who had dosed him and as soon as he’d arrived home to his newly squatted dig, he dosed him again. It nearly killed him that time, neither party was without blame, but still, I held a certain reservations over his company.
“My mate said she saw some bloke drop a bottle of cider off the bridge yesterday, it sank in the mud, so I’m having a look!” He blurted without shame.
I laughed madly and look across at Chapter 12 whilst Delroy returned to his excavations. He nodded and quietly laughed, he was enjoying every minute of it, relishing in the lunacy of the situation. They didn’t find the cider, instead Delroy cut his leg and latter found out it had a severe infection; Christ knows what’s in that river, I wouldn’t go near it, It still surprises me I haven’t seen a body float by; we’d had the second highest murder rate in the UK a few years back.
I gave him my arm and we pulled him out of the mud, he was a tall, black haired man with dry black skin. He looked like a tramp today but I know tomorrow he'd be dressed in white selling phones again. He gave us both a cigarette and we mourned over the lost potential of another drunken morning whilst watching the waters rise on the far banks of the river.
I later found out he wasn’t looking for a bottle of Cider, he had told Dan, some weeks later, that he had just jumped of the bridge in a bid to kill himself but had failed, got stuck in the mud and, at the time, been too embarrassed to tell us. It seemed like a half ass attempted to me but nevertheless he was on his own writhing in the mud for a few hours in the early hours before chapter 12 had turned up, I guess he’d got a taste.
I heard mine name, twice, maybe three times; it took a while to make the association with that word and this aching sack of flesh that hung form me. I walked like a broken robot to the edge of the bridge and dropped my head over letting the sling shot of gravity pendulum my neck from side to side. Focusing, I spotted two figures; Chapter 12… and… he was with another. It was Delroy. But he was standing in the mud of the river banks.
“What, do you... doing!?” I clattered like a brain dead Scouser. My last syllable spiraled up in pitch uncontrollably before I realized and pulled my chin to my neck for safety and repose.
“Fishing!” Chapter grinned.
My head lunged forward as I fell into a psychotic bout of cackled hysterics, my stomach contorted, my head flailed, I wheezed and eventually stammered back like a ninety year old attempting to regain equanimity. What seemed like moments later I appeared behind them at the fence of the river, it was foul smelling, a dark muddy grey and contained the majority of a local supermarkets trolleys. Since I’d lived in the town, I’d too frequently seen search and rescue helicopters hovering, scouring the waters with their lights, searching for some sign of the nameless and faceless figure that had jumped minutes before hand... they never made the papers. As I walked by I’d look down and scanned the water for bodies. I’d never seen one.
Delroy, knee deep in thick grey mud, was searching around like a terrier, digging test holes with his bloated hands and then moving on to another. I liked him, but kept him at a distance. He’d broken into my mate Dan’s flat whilst he was recovering in hospital from an overdose. It had been Delroy who had dosed him and as soon as he’d arrived home to his newly squatted dig, he dosed him again. It nearly killed him that time, neither party was without blame, but still, I held a certain reservations over his company.
“My mate said she saw some bloke drop a bottle of cider off the bridge yesterday, it sank in the mud, so I’m having a look!” He blurted without shame.
I laughed madly and look across at Chapter 12 whilst Delroy returned to his excavations. He nodded and quietly laughed, he was enjoying every minute of it, relishing in the lunacy of the situation. They didn’t find the cider, instead Delroy cut his leg and latter found out it had a severe infection; Christ knows what’s in that river, I wouldn’t go near it, It still surprises me I haven’t seen a body float by; we’d had the second highest murder rate in the UK a few years back.
I gave him my arm and we pulled him out of the mud, he was a tall, black haired man with dry black skin. He looked like a tramp today but I know tomorrow he'd be dressed in white selling phones again. He gave us both a cigarette and we mourned over the lost potential of another drunken morning whilst watching the waters rise on the far banks of the river.
I later found out he wasn’t looking for a bottle of Cider, he had told Dan, some weeks later, that he had just jumped of the bridge in a bid to kill himself but had failed, got stuck in the mud and, at the time, been too embarrassed to tell us. It seemed like a half ass attempted to me but nevertheless he was on his own writhing in the mud for a few hours in the early hours before chapter 12 had turned up, I guess he’d got a taste.