Jared’s head pounded. His lips felt dry. As another bout of
shakes began to take him, he glanced at the bathroom counter. The syringe was
still there, staring, or glaring? There was a voice in his head. Asking,
demanding, almost ordering him to plunge it and its contents into his arm. And
Jared didn’t know that he had it in him to drown it out anymore.
He sat, his back against the wall in more ways than one, and
stared at the fluorescent bulb above his head. Glowing dots, demons and sprites
danced across his vision threatening to blind him. His head lolled to one side,
with his arm still around the toilet. Getting up again and again to vomit had
begun to prove too much for him so he’d just crawled into the bathroom to let
the last of the heroin leave his body.
He could hear his phone ringing. The guys at the office?
Couldn’t be. They’d given up on their star trader a while ago. Jared’s chest
rose and fell raggedly. Stretching out his arms, he endeavoured to concentrate
on the goose-bumps on his skin and raised arm hair, as the shaking started
again.
How long had it been? Since that last, fleeting escape? A
day? It was difficult to tell time in a bathroom with only one tiny window. He
thought he heard a banging on the…front door? Or was that the pounding in his
head?
Thanks to the one tiny window, Jared could tell whether it
was night or day. All his brain seemed to remember was that lightheaded
euphoria, that floating freedom. Armed with those memories, Jared’s brain
desperately pleaded with him to repeat it, just once more, just one more time!
“No. I said I was
done, and this time I meant it.”
Next thing he knew; the window had changed from a deep blue
to a bright golden yellow. His brain had stopped trying to force its way out of
his skull. Jared got to his feet and tottered over to the counter. He didn’t
recognise the pale, gaunt skeleton staring at him from the mirror.
He looked down, and picked up the syringe. He cradled the
needle in the palm of his hand, resisting the urge to plunge it into his arm.
The next three steps were the most difficult he'd ever taken. As his trembling body protested and his mind thundered at him,
Jared forced one foot up and in front of the other. As he reached the toilet,
he let the syringe fall from his hand into the water. He pushed the flusher, breaking
into a smile, a real smile, for the first time in what felt like forever.
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