My hope for a full night's rest became an unattainable, yearned-for dream. A privilege I once took for granted. Insomnia is a recurring visitor of mine who strives to ruin me. The continual replay of memories and the current reality of what my life has become preoccupies my thoughts every night, unwilling to grant me any respite or peace. Showcasing compilations of my life disappointments, where the sting of reminiscence abides. Providing an inner sanctum for depressive thoughts.
Encompassed by twilight's pre-winter embrace, I meander down a sheltered path between two four-storied apartments. Damp, brittle leaves and stray stones crunch under the weight of my boots. The dank autumnal air wets the coarse brickwork and deteriorating cement sprayed by graffiti. Sleet falls from the crowded starlit night sky, marking the end of November.
Further on ahead, down the path lies a solitary figure slumped against the wall, draped in shadow. Framed by a tangerine outline from a flickering streetlamp, they need to fix that fucking light. I squat down in front of the unconscious man, catching a strong whiff of alcohol from him. Through the inconsistent projection of light, I manage to get a clear view of him. An overgrown, neglected grey beard and thick, wiry eyebrows. He has a wax-like complexion and vomit on his cheek. Dry blood smeared across his bottom lip and coated the entrance of his nostrils. I turn my nose away from the stench of rancidness and defecation. You'd think I'd be used to it by now – but I'm not. I check his pulse. Nothing. No shallow breaths or chain stoking; no audible indication of breathing. I lift his ice-cold hand resting on his beer gut to discover a wide gash underneath. Bloodied puss has soaked his green-buttoned shirt in a sickly, muddied shade of red.
The memory of my first encounter with a corpse resurfaces. I recall the memory as clear as yesterday. Hours before dawn. Still blackout. Sleeping in the clothes she had on her back. Lying down on her side on the iced pavement behind a nightclub venue, covered by a blanket of snow. Delicate crystals of ice layer aloft her long eyelashes. Eyes closed. Lips parted. Sleeping quietly – too quietly. She looked only a couple of years younger than me. Her petite frame was frigid – and yet her resting expression was peaceful, as though she welcomed the reaper's touch. I checked to see if she was breathing. She wasn't. Then, through a rude realisation, it became clear to me. She was gone - and no one noticed. Did she have a family? What was her name? Who was she before the streets claimed her? I was bothered by it for many months. It kept me awake. It gave me sleepless nights. Until I saw more corpses littering the backstreets one by one through the seasons. It quickly became the new norm for me. I was desensitized by it all. I tend to notice more of an increase in the winter months. Sometimes they die from inflicted wounds – or pneumonia. Sometimes it's because of their own inability to survive, such as affording food and drinks. Living in Britain isn't as straightforward or as kind as people seem to believe. People are underpaid and overworked. Prices and inflation rise every year. The government won't resolve homelessness. They are too busy spending public funding. I have accepted the likelihood of dying alone, and that some stranger may find my forgotten husk on a whim, or the conclusion of my premature fate written in an online news article.
You see, not everyone receives a happy ending. It's a part of life. The part when God finally abandons you. I give the old man one final glance before I take my leave. It was pointless to do anything about it. He is long gone – and not my problem. I rub my hands together to generate some heat, but to no avail. I cough and shiver on my way back to my temporary residence. Dying of pneumonia or starvation? Not sure which one to choose.
I soon arrive at my residence. An old abandoned council house. I pry open the stiff, weather-beaten front door with my numbingly cold hands and rush inside, eager to escape the outside chill – the bite of early frost. I bang the door back into place using my shoulder, as it threatened to come off its hinges. I pull out my torch from my coat pocket and turn it on. I shine the light into the pitch-blackness to locate my rucksack and a rolled-up sleeping bag in the living room. This council house has been here since the eighties. Unfortunately, the stairs are precarious and too unsafe to use. I kneel to unroll and straighten out my sleeping bag. I remove my coat and fold it up, then set it down beside me on the bare wooden floorboard. I turn off my torch and rest it on top of my folded coat before slipping into my sleeping bag fully clothed. Encapsulating my body heat. A regular draft comes in from underneath the front door. Shadows creep into my peripheral vision, taunting me from my blind spots. I burrow deep inside. Paying no mind to them. I know I'm not alone. For as long as I can remember, throughout my childhood, I was visited by a faceless shadow. It would emerge from the darkest corner of my room in my childhood home at dead hour. Sometimes it stood at the end of my bed observing me in silence. Mute, and still. I found it oddly comforting. When I told my parents about the said encounter, they dismissed it and blamed it on an overactive imagination, as usual. When I grew into adolescence, the visitations lessened. The last time I saw the visitor, I was eighteen; however, the feeling of being observed lingered. These days, at the age of twenty-two, I am usually accompanied by a nondescript breed of shadow. I have spent three years on my own, moving from street to street. Regardless of where I am or how I struggle, they were always at my side, unlike his holiness. I peer up at the peeling, dust-covered ceiling fringed with torn cobwebs. Hanging threads of old spider silk glint in the glowering luminosity of the full moon through the cracked living room window. I release a long sigh; a year has passed since I last spoke to you. Spoke at you. I know you've already forsaken me, and my faith in you was not enough. It was never enough. You were hard to please from the beginning. Not once did you respond to my prayers, especially when I needed you the most.
What was I expecting, an actual reply? How laughable. Nothing is going to change. I rest my eyes and slow down my breathing. Relaxing my body. Falling into a rare state of comfort. Melting within the abyss of my subconscious, where insomnia dares not delve...
A gust of warmth and humidity stirs me from my comfortable position. Despite my reluctance to part with it, the convenient temperature is too inviting to refuse. Disturbed, I crawl out of my cocoon. Clumsily trying to find my feet. Bright intrusive rays hit my eyelids, forcing me to squint. The smell of sea salt teases my sinuses. I try to keep my eyes open, so they can adjust. In the distance, an ocean glistens under the fervent glare of the sun. There is no grim cloud in sight. Local bars, cafes, and restaurants are packed with tourists. Residential buildings are dotted throughout the uphill terrain, comprised of rock, parched dirt, and minimal spots of greenery. Car drivers and motorcyclists drive past, fixated on the road ahead. La Marina's urbanization. San Fulgencio. Spain. I used to have holidays here with my grandparents when I was a child, when they were alive. As memory serves, it was a simpler time – a time without worry. Then, a group of holidaymakers walks through me. Oblivious, and chatting to one another while heading over to a café. They walked straight through me, as if I didn't exist. I don't know whether to feel offended or misplaced. Am I lucid dreaming right now? A pulsation of light catches my attention and lures me astray from my thoughts. Beckoning me over to the other side of the road. Nestled within a cradle of constrictive overgrowth. I tread carefully as I make my way downhill, brushing past collations of shrubbery, and inciting a choir of crude hissing from the native cicadas. I kneel on the slope of dirt and reach into the strangulating overgrowth to seize the questionable, palpitating glimmer. I pull it out, towards my chest, liberating it from the possessive entanglement of green. It stops pulsating. I examine the foreign chunk of Argentine, weighing it in my palm. Weightless. Lackluster. Rustic. Embellished with a silvery streak of diminishing blue. I scrutinise the rough, uneven edges of the shard. Did it snap or break off from something? In comparison to my usual dreams, this feels extraordinarily vivid. There is an uncharacteristic absence of coherent nonsensicalness. Contrasts of distinction and familiarity relay a bitter twinge to my heart. I don't know if I am a stranger or a long-lost friend to my own self. I am nothing but a shell – a shell of who I used to be. I am a ghost of reminiscence. I am someone misplaced inside a dream. Someone holding onto the past. Then an inexplicable inclination stirs within me and compels me to tighten my grip. An irrational, profound desire to constrain and hold onto it, no matter the means. The jagged rim saws into the thick of my palm as I tighten my grasp further. Red bleeds onto the metallic coat, submerging the fine line scrapes and dents. A blood-filled pattern decorates the shard; an unrecognisable design of a rhombus surrounded by three small circles. I grit my teeth and hiss at the sawing assault on my flesh. Blood cascades down my wrist in multiple lesser streams. Clouds appear on the horizon and merge together into a single seismic mass. The biblical cloud darkens and paints itself somber. Smothering the sky. Purple flashes eventuate within the mass, followed by a growling rumble. It looms over the ocean, carrying a downpour of thunderous rain, developing a mushroom effect. Everything around me blears into apparitional residue. A location I once knew, and a foundation of childhood memories, are now faded. Gone. Lost to the cruel aging passage of time. I squeeze my eyes shut and cry out as my hand refuses to relinquish the shard; somehow, it possesses a will of its own.
My eyes snap open to recognise a daunting moonlit ceiling. I'm lying flat on my back on the cold wooden floor. My sleeping bag is disheveled, unzipped, and turned inside out. Shaped into a sorry state. The phantom sensation of an acute palpable sharpness dwells in my palm. I bring my hand to my face to see bloody fingers clutching onto the same piece of Argentine from my dream. I scramble onto my feet. Alarmed. How is this even possible? The illumined piece resumes pulsating. Its radiance flares up, and a blinding brightness floods the whole living room. Stranding me in a boundless space of bleached azure. There is no indication of a beginning or end to this heavenly plane. Am I dead? An amalgamation of muffled male vocals and hissing resounds behind the otherworldly veil. The angelic expanse disperses and devolves into a colourless miasma. Sibilating fumes shoot out from the punctured walls of a steel interior. It reminds me of a concept art for a Sci-Fi horror game, or there is a high chance that I'm still lucid dreaming. I curl my lip up and bare my teeth like an animal as the shard squirms in my grasp. Snuggling into the wound. Deepening the injury. Making it bleed into this alternative reality. For a blissful second, I forgot I was holding onto this chunk of metal. I use my uninjured hand to uncurl my stubborn fingers. Then the shard shoots up into the air. Hovering a centimeter over my head, it then begins to glide away at an unhurried pace. Lacking urgency. Delving into the vaporous passageway...