The slow hum of faulty electrics fills the room, my eyes burn as heavy lids peel back letting cold light seep through the gaps. Numbers blare from the clock beside me but I can’t make them out for all the haze. Reach for a cigarette but my hand falls flat. I have to get up. A dull ache swims vicious passageways through my body and the room shifts unevenly. The culprit stares sardonically at me, lips edged with poison labelled with bold black imprints Highland Scotch, mixed in Brooklyn’s finest bathtub. Thick stubble catches at my fingers as I rub life into my face and there’s a grimy itch at the edge of my eyes, sweat and smoke and dirt…… I’ve gotta find a cigarette.
There’s a packet on the windowsill cardboard edges dipped and worn, frustrated hands constantly caressing the edges. Sure I’ve thought about quitting, giving in to health trip fanatics and Sunday magazines, but who the hell needs to breathe anyway? I shuffle over and the lights beside them, thank god for the addicts memory, even through the booze I’ve planned the next hit. The dancing flame embraces the tip of my nicotine baby and I draw in a mouthful of hot sticky air settling silently into the night. Buildings crowd the window frame, closing in this small concrete world, just another notch, another face, another meaningless number raised in metal on the door. Everybody so close but so far away locked in broken dreams and shitty wages. I’m one of those numbers, with a small difference and it’s the case file sitting at my feet. An angel bloodied and busted, a sleepless question hanging on her parted lips and her dead eyes whispering, asking desperate favor’s from the upturned photograph.
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Submission Name: Noir Angel
