She sat on the toilet with its lid down and leaned against the toilet cistern, she was situated in the city. It had been weeks, no months since she had been like this. Why was it happening? It wasn’t supposed to and she’d been so good lately, hadn’t touched anything. The incidents from the past few days had caught up with her and she couldn’t handle it, not all by herself.
She’d caught a train into the city and bought a deal at the station. Then she had headed into the toilet, the one she used to go to when she was a regular user. Her friends used to go there with her, they’d all go in there straight and come out with an altered state of body and mind. But today she was by herself.
She’d just finished fixing herself up so she was ready to face the world. She waited a bit longer just to make sure she was ready. Maybe she’d had a little bit too much, it was hard to judge these things. She waited and stared at the familiar door of the toilet cubicle, every time she used these toilets she always used the one second from the back wall. The graffiti was familiar, and each time she came in she always read over to see any new changes or messages that had been artistically placed so she could add them to her vocabulary.
Standing up for a second caused a great dizziness to rush to her head, followed by a feeling of calm. If she didn’t do something she’d be asleep. She couldn’t let herself sleep. She pushed against the door, that lead out into the world, until it opened up and let her through. She wandered down to the bottle shop, and although under-aged, she was sold a small bottle of spirits. She drank a few mouthfuls and stored the rest in her bag. It was late afternoon and the sun was low in the sky, which caused long out of proportion shadows. This added to the unreality of her world.
She collapsed on the closest bench and took a cigarette from her bag. She engulfed the creamy smoke into her body and smiled, feeling so relaxed and peaceful. She watched the smoke drift slowly in and out of her body. It amused her for about five minutes then she took the last drag and threw the butt on the ground, pressed her foot on it and laughed. It wasn’t really funny, but she felt so good she had to laugh. It had been ages since the last time she really laughed. Looking down at the squashed cigarette butt, she burst into raging laughter, it felt so good.
She was up and the ground and people moved from beneath and beside her. Life now seemed to be happening without her control, everything seemed so easy when she was like this. Stop, time for a rest, the ground wouldn’t stop, it was on a journey, wanted to get somewhere. Where? Stairs moved from beneath her along with concrete pathways, gravel patches, grass, mud and finally unidentifiable surfaces that kept running from beneath her. What to do? What could she do. Should she panic? Was there anything to panic about. Trying to think and come to terms with her surrounding. She couldn’t stop things from happening around her.
She was now trudging through the bush. Noticing that she couldn’t see. Dark. She turned to see more darkness behind her. She took a step, not knowing her destination. Slipping into a puddle mud splashed up her leg as her hand reached out and got attacked by a sharp wooded splinter. It wanted to devour her, slice her veins and pour out the warm liquid from inside of her body. Lighting a match and looking at the out of proportion pain, she saw only a slight spot of blood seeping from her skin. How could something so small be caused by such a vicious act of violence?
She was loosing her energy, she needed to make a decision. She felt as though this was the one and only decision of her life. To sit in the bush nowhere from nowhere, and wait until life ended or to get up and move until moving was no longer possible. She was already moving, moving towards the lights. Ahead, above or below, where were they. She had no control, her mind seemed to be divided up into several different parts that weren’t working together but each making decisions.
There was a fence in the way of where she wanted to be, maybe she could walk through it. She didn’t think it needed to be there, so maybe it wasn’t, maybe she imagined it was there. Taking a few steps back then heading forward again, her body hit the fence with a loud thud. It really was there. She picked up her leg and hurled it at it, then she did the same with her arm. Ti definitely wasn’t going to move. She’d have to go around it.
She was already in front of the lights, it didn’t take very long, but she didn’t really have a sense of time so that wasn’t a very accurate thought. Lights, and people asking questions. Where? She didn’t have any answers. Too bad, she turned and walked back to where she came from. Hoping to walk back to last week, she was ok then. It didn’t happen. Instead she found herself, once again, fighting her way through the dense shrubbery that seemed to be trying to stop her from progressing. Focusing all that she had on fighting her way through.
She finally made it past the thickness that was trying to hold her back. It wasn’t too hard, she just had to concentrate. She was on the ground. The soft, warm, comforting ground. A bed of grass and moss cushioned her from all evil that existed. Trees closed in and protected her from the world. She was safe, she’d make it to safety, her eyes closed and she rested in the calmness of her surroundings. No more coldness, no more bad things, no more hurt, she’d found where it was safe and warm, the only place in all existence that was safe and she was there.
Awakening, she opened her eyes to the brightest light she’d ever seen. She must of died and gone to heaven. Looking to the side of her she realised that she couldn’t be in heaven. Bush surrounded her, looking back she recognised the sun and suddenly felt it’s intense heat. She tried to move, everything ached, every inch, inside and out, of her body felt terrible. She had never felt this bad before. Sitting fully upright, with difficulty, she became conscious that she was wet. She was sitting in a big puddle, covered in mud, as well as twigs and leaves. Her clothes were dirty and stained. Her hands were cut and bruised, there rest of her body felt as though it were too.
She fumbled around in her bag and retrieved her pack of cigarettes. She spent a few minutes trying to lite one, her hands were injured and she’d lost her co-ordination. Her throat hurt as the dry smoke passed by into her lungs, which ached. She felt like shit, and didn’t really know where she was or where to go. She’d didn’t know whether she was capable of walking or not. But there wasn’t really any other choice, no one would find her if she stayed where she was.
Her legs wouldn’t move, tears slipped out of her eyes and down her face. She couldn’t move, it just wasn’t physically possible and she could barely think. She uncontrollably started to wail and liquid poured from her eyes and nose. The emotional and physical pain was all too much. She lay back, so completely depressed that any will to live had been erased.
She closed her eyes and waited for death to come and get her.
