party feats two

We'd been sitting together in the car for over two hours waiting outside my flat for the rain to finally stop.

We did'nt need to talk.

Stephen looked down at his hands which gripped the wheel.He took the brake and when the car stopped with a muffled scream he turned to me.

 "Do they know how far gone you are?"

His voice seemed to cut through the heat of the heavily dense air in the small vehicle.. 

"stage two....My  symptoms should be slowed down by antiretrovirals..it helps stop the breaking down of the immune system."                                                                              

"Have you phoned or told anyone else like your mum?"                                     

The mix cd I'd made stephen was playing.Track four meandered into life as liliac wine by Jeff Buckley started.I'd known stephen since we were eleven years of age.He was taller than me by a foot then but around the second year of high school I suddenly sprouted into the BFG.Stephen had been the closest I'd had to family all these years.Mum and my father had split due to fact they both had aged into two people totally different from those they had fallen in love with.Those lovers had casually died.        

       Stephen was the one who told me about the birds and bees.His sister had left a trashy teen s***s magazine lying in the bathroom after painting her nails and stephen had flipped through it and found his childhood disapear into an abyss filled with stuffed bras and tampon ads.He had also been there for me when my father died of a heart attack the year before.I had been there for him also as best friends are ,but I felt like this scruffy glaswegian who had an overbearing quiff was my very own clarence.A guardian angel in slacks.

"I haven't....Just you."I mouthed , fingering my hair and glanced awkwardly out the window.

"They don't have to know....Not Yet anyway...."

I struggled to get my jacket on.It reached the floor and give my the apperance of a brittish spy during the war.

"thanks stephen"

I gathered my things up and got out of the car ,fiddling around in look of my keys.

Just as the car was about to leave I called out to stpehen to wait.The window slowly opened and I looked dead on at my friend.

 "I can't thankyou enough mate"

"F**k off you bloody numptie!we're supposed to do shite for each other!""

He reached out his hand and we shared one last manly shake.

"see ya later colin ,ya  bloody ball bag..."

 

I smiled at him ,but as he went off into the sleet and grey downpour of rain I could see a single tear fall from his face and another and another til he looked as sad as the weather he drove on through.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke. 

My Eyes  were laced with strained lines and  my lungs which were surely weak thundered away as I broke into a sweat.

On my floor and around the bed like a shrine to some god lay hundreds of empty bear bottles.

The only memory of the night before.

It was nearly evening and I hadn't stirred from my sleep. 

Falling out of my small softly lullibic bed  I slowly floated in my own time to the bathroom.

My medicine cabinet which had once been a haven for nicities such as the odd condom or even body butter was completely full of my meds...

I clasped one  of the bottles in my left hand and looked up  at my reflection.I felt pathetic.I listlessly took the many pills which were fighting their own bacterial version of the somme inside me and looked back into the eyes of this stranger.

I shut the cabinet and wandered out into the street filled only with cheap drink,pills and nothing else.

A shell.A Shell.A shell.

A shell which you can't hear the sea in.....

 

        Un known to me there was a girl in the distance.

  I really wish I had learned to drive.Public transport in scotland was mortifyingly bad.

An X1 had stopped up ahead at a vandalised bus stop covered in male and female anatomy,The bus driver seeming to hold a grudge with the human race. As pensioners and teenagers searched for their fare he counted down the days before he would take a gun to work. 

   I tried sprinting to catch up before it left ,but  simply felt my  ability to convey my orders into movement leave,crashing to earth without trying and giving myself  into the warm embrace of unconsiousness.Nothing nice would come of it but I could just not exist for a short while.I'd never dreamnt and imagined death would be the same.This weird peace that filled your every crevice,bone and wound.a blissful coma which the sleeper would never want to wake from no matter how many bed sore they had.

 I  Had fallen near a bin but another scent penetrated me.

It was angelic and It made my lanky body want to collapse into tears of pure Joy.

If I'd had control over myself I would have smiled instead of just lying there.

The bus went by and no one even registered the crumpled mass.A passing person sat down on her knees and caressed my cheeks.

She'd seen me before. 

  The girl was no older than nineteen and she was truly beautiful.Snow white in a primark dress.

  Though she could'nt place me she knew me.We both could only describe the feeling as if a part of our body we'd lost had suddenly been found.A fingerprint to which a fingerprint matched exactly in smudgy brilliance.... 

Reviews

[bluessadmood]

this is a nice beginning ,it seems there are sad things that you will say ,i liked the humorous way you are telling about this,lets see how it goes ,till now it looks so good,i really liked it

[Sam Summers]

"awhoohooowhaaaaaahhh?"

that was almost my reaction when the girl was introduced. almost.

i can't wait for chapter three, and for the record i love the fingerprint metaphor. i love all your metaphors.

[FoolsGold23]

oohhhhhhhh this is NEAT! I really feel for the guy, and this new twist near the dumpster is intriguing. You're a great writer, your words are plain, but lacking the coarse and almost vulgar descriptions, its noble in a way. Great work!!~P

[pleaseplease]

I like how it was still kept so vague with this line: "Do they know how far gone you are?"
and I'm sitting here wondering if it's some kind of emotional or imaginary sickness.

You are very very good at keeping me wondering, holding the suspense.
And, again, the language is lovely.

And the end of this chapter is a cliffhanger too, damn you! :)

Great work!

[inhale]

brilliant work. this chapter fits nicely with the first. you'll be adding to this i hope?