sit and look at Sam, push back the impending darkness by looking at beauty. I could spend all day just watching him, he’s all I need to make me happy. How many people will value you that highly?
The sky is beautiful. Late afternoon and dry. A cold blue, darkening with the dimming winter sun. Clouds, titanium white flowing in lines, ordered, structured, drawn surely by a human hand. No god or divine deity could have painted this sky, their work is resembled through chaos, this precision and attention to detail shows this could only be the work of a member of mankind. Skylines fake, we’re in a studio, a nation of ants locked in a giant reality TV show, the cameras we take as being CCTV in fact beam their images to billions of patient viewers on another world. A flat stage with its fake revolving skies, structured and moving perfectly in time.
The clouds stretch out, regimented and aligned like knights of old on a battlefield, marching slowly forth into war, drops of rain the blood of the dead in the sky. Each sunset a distant nuclear holocaust, each night the formation of universes, every sunrise a glorious burst of new life. All painted, projected, enacted above our heads and rarely do we appreciate it. Rarely do we take the time to look at the beauty born of chaos. Too busy putting together schedules and timetables as explanations, forcing human order to the divine chaos we so fear.
The rattle of keys, Sam trying to work out which one to use. Without taking my eyes from the sky I hear words leave my lips. ‘The gold one.’
The jingling stops, the sound of a door opening. I just want to stand here and watch the night sky, to lay back on the ground and stare into space, think about life on the other planets. When you look up into space you realise how small you really are, an endless realm of infinite possibilities stretching out before your eyes. On a distant planet someone could be sat looking into that gulf of twinkling blackness thinking the same, pinpointing our own sun, a distant star to them, and wondering if it is capable of supporting life.
‘You coming in?’ Sam’s voice.
‘Yeah, okay.’ Turn away from the night. Close the front door and walk to Sam’s room.
Sanctuary. All fears melt away. I climb onto the bed and sit, watching Sam as he looks at himself in the mirror. He’s unclipping his chains, his eyes turn to me. ‘Anything that jingles we take off.’
‘What?’
‘Anything that jingles we take off.’
I look into his eyes and nod, pulling off my chains. In his head the rattle of metal annoys him, grates on him like fingernails across a blackboard. Place the chains on the floor and look up smiling. He points at my ears. I smile, he still points. ‘Sorry babe.’ I say. ‘There’s no way I’m taking my piercings out.’ He nods, understands.
De-chained and de-belted I continue to sit on the bed. Sam turns on the television, its screen flickers to life, a weird channel, fucked up images of accidents on constant loop. A television on mute adding extra illumination to the room.
‘Don’t you just love TV?’ Sam says.
‘Not really.’ I fucking hate it.
‘It’s just so cool.’ He’s crying, why the fuck is he crying?
‘Sam, what’s wrong?’
‘I’m crying at the coolness of TV. How lame is that?’ He laughs.
I raise from the bed, give him a hug before laying down on the floor. I know if I sit I’m going to hunch up, tense my muscles and be in pain later, if I lay down there’s no pressure, more comfort.
‘This room is so dark.’ Sam’s voice, spoken from his position on the bed.
‘I’ve never really noticed.’
‘I mean it’s all these shades of darkness.’
I chuckle. ‘If that’s so.’ My arm flicks out and points at something. ‘Explain that pink.’
‘What the fuck?’
I don’t know how I’ve done it but my finger points to a strip of florescent pink shining out from the wall’s poster base. I don’t know how I knew it would be pink, neither do I know how I know there’s a blue one over there. My arm points, Sam looks.
‘What the fuck?’ Sam.
‘Pretty ain’t they? They look gay but still, it’s colour.’ I smile.
‘What are they?’
‘Who knows.’
Sam climbs off the bed. They’re bookmarks, items of memories for a younger Sam. He plucks them from the wall like a god plucking stars from the night’s sky, walks over to the wardrobe and sticks them amongst the pictures that make up his memory wall. A mass of items to help remember the past, the good times. He looks at them for a moment.
A flash, a camera flash, bright. He’s taken a photo of me. Another flash. Life exposed on a piece of film. So this is what it must feel to be a celebrity, your private moments caught without being asked and stored upon a memory stick. Smile, be happy, look happy whilst inside you’re screaming for it to stop. Happy smile hiding internal sadness.
Stop! Stop right there, don’t even think of turning this trip bad. You’ve been attempting it all afternoon, don’t think I don’t know. There’s no crying inside, you’re just trying to make me believe there is. If this is causing bad, then stop it. I tell Sam to put the camera away, he does so. He knows.
‘I’m just going to the toilet,’ he says.
‘Okay.’
‘Back in a second.’ He leaves.
Walk around the room, catch myself in the mirror, I like what I see. I look good today. This is going well, peaceful, alone together. Sam and I enjoying each other’s company, but...
No, no buts. ‘But’ is bad.
I turn, the room is darker, grottier, seedier. What if this is the reality, that we are actually junkies, looking like shit, living like shit, using to escape the truth? Outside a police siren. Shit. I look down at my arms, a track-mark, a bruise. Surely that can’t be right, they cannot exist. This is just my brain trying to convince me otherwise, trying to pull this happiness apart. The room certainly looks darker, there’s a sweet smell in the air, maybe all we need is another hit.
The door opens and Sam enters, instant happiness. The room lights up, returns to normal. I sit back down on the floor. From here I watch him return to his wall of memories. He stands transfixed.
‘Don’t you wish sometimes that you could just jump through and into a photo?’ he asks. ‘Relive that memory.’
‘Yeah, but sometimes the memory is remembered differently from that present. I mean it could have been a shit day which you hated at the time but laughed about it later.’
‘I guess.’ Silence. A loud thud, he’s punched the wall. That’s not good. ‘I want to jump through,’ he whispers.
‘Sam, come here.’
‘I just want to jump through.’
‘Sam, come here now.’ My voice authoritative.
‘But.’
‘No buts, get here now.’
He walks slowly over to me and sits, leaning into me, he remains silent. It almost went bad for him, I managed to save it from doing so.
‘Why relive the past when you can live the now?’ I ask.
‘I dunno.’ He sighs, rubbing his head against me. I love it when he does that.
‘Anyone would think you weren’t satisfied with the present.’
‘Don’t say that, I wouldn’t change anything.’
I hear my alarm go off. Six o’clock. Sam rises to his feet and walks over to his clock, pulls it from the wall and removes the battery. He repeats it to all the clocks. Time frozen at six o’clock. ‘Who needs time?’ he says. ‘All you can hear is it ticking away.’
He returns to my side, a blissful silence. We lay there in each other’s arms. My hearing has returned to normal, I can tell, but this time I know what it means. The comedown has started. Everything slowly returning to normal. The end approaching. Such a wonderful relief.
‘I'm hungry,’ Sam says. ‘Let's go out and get food.’
‘Not a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Coz we’re sti
ll under.’
‘I’m not, I’m off.’
‘Whatever Sam.’ I know he’s not off.
‘I want food, we’ve got to eat.’
‘Yeah, and it’s only just gone six, plenty of time.’
He gets up. ‘Well, fuck you, I’m going, you can stay here for all I care.’
I follow him, grab him and push him on the bed. ‘You’re not going.’
His voice raises, a shout. ‘You can’t fucking stop me.’
‘Can’t I?’ I snarl. ‘You’re not off, and wanna know how I fucking well know? My Sam, even if he was off, wouldn’t try and drag me out knowing I was on.’
He snorts. ‘Well, your Sam isn’t here any more.’
‘And what’s in his place? A spiteful, self-centred little shit who cares about no one but himself.’
‘Fuck you, don’t you ever call me self-centred.’
‘I’ll not call you it when you stop being it.’ I crouch down and pick up the unopened bag of crisps. I throw them at him. ‘If you’re so hungry then eat these.’
‘I don't want fucking crisps.’
‘Humour me, once you’ve eaten them I’ll go out for food with you.’ I sneak a peek at my watch.
He opens the bag and eats, a never-ending series of crisps entering his mouth. Silence except for his chewing, crunching. He stops, looking at me.
‘How long you reckon you’ve been eating those?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘Ages, I’ve been eating slowly. About half and hour.’
I smile, peek at my watch. ‘Five minutes, that’s all.’
‘No?’ Surprise in his voice
‘Yup, so much for being off then.’
Sam just stares at me, watching. He reaches forward and we hug. Just sit and