NaDruWriNi

[the_siobhan]

Just finished second gin. Going for third. Whoot.

The process of writing is as mcuh fun as ever but I'm not entirely sure about this story. It's not grabbing me like the penis story did, y'know? I've just started though, I might be able to do something fun with it.

What do you think? Keep going or do something different?


My head is killing me. The pain comes in waves from a point right behind my eyes. I try to bury myself tighter into my pillow.

I know that there is something I can do to make the pain stop but the feeling has displaced any memory of how to do it. I moan faintly, hoping that Axel will hear me and do something to help.

There doesn't seem to be any Axel. I slide a hand out from under the covers and grope randomly at the air beside the bed. I have a vague idea that there might be a table there with pills on it or in it. If I could find them I might be able to make the pain stop. My eyes are tightly closed against air that has been built out of knives and my hand never does encounters the table. I give up. The bed doesn't feel right and I wonder if I have managed to switch myself around in my sleep. I pull my arm back under the covers and give up. I'm curled up in the fetal position, the covers pulled up over my head. Involuntary tears trickle out from under my clenched eyelids.

I fade in and out of consciousness for what seems like a long time. Even my dreams are about how much head hurts. Occasionally I think there is somebody is in the room talking to me but I just moan at them, "My head hurts" and they go away. For some reason no help is forthcoming and I feel resentment building behind the pain. Bastard.

Eventually I fall back to sleep.

.........................

My head was still throbbing dully when I finally woke up for good but it had retreated to a level that left me at least functional. I opened my eyes to sunlight slanting through the window and across the bed, casting long shadows across the carpet. The house had that breathless stillness that indicated nobody was home.

I found my glasses on the floor next to the bed and a bathrobe hanging from a hook on the back of the door. Then I spent a long time sitting on the bed staring at my surroundings. The room felt wrong, like I was looking at it through a fun-house mirror. I gaped at my books and the pictures on the wall and wondered how I could look at them every day and still feel like I didn't recognize them.

I finally got dressed, reasoning that I might be less disoriented and insecure if I at least had pants on. I had to open every drawer of the small dresser to figure out where I kept everything; my socks and underwear in one place, my t-shirts in another, trousers in a third. I dug around in the unfamiliar clothing until I found a pair of jeans. I put on the sole black shirt I could find and for some reason I immediately felt better.

I opened the bedroom door and found myself on a landing, a simple square of beige and green carpet with doors opening on three sides and a stairway on the forth. I stared at the stairs. The image of ugly wooden dust-covered stairs going up were superimposed over the ugly carpeted steps going down. Squinting didn't help. I inched towards them, moving my feet tentatively forwards, expecting any second now that I would bang my foot into something hard. Instead my toes slid off the end of the top step and the downward steps snapped into focus. I gripped the banister like a lifeline as I slowly descended.

The ground floor was barely more familiar. The green-and-beige carpet continued through the whole floor and there was a matching sofa and arm chair in the living room. There was wood paneling on one of the walls beside enormous glass doors that led outside. It all looked disturbingly familiar.

I wandered into the bright kitchen with it's wallpaper of enormous sunflowers. There was a newspaper discarded on the kitchen counter. I picked it up and looked through the headlines. An article about Elvis' funeral. A story about the Weathermens' possible connection to Fidel Castro. A fluff piece about a hand-written letter from Jimmy Carter to a busboy at the Beverly Hills Supper Club. The entertainment section had a Top 10 list at the back and I scanned through the names. Rod Stewart, Debby Boone, Shaun Cassidy, Dan Hill... Christ, that explains it. I've died and gone to hell.

I heard the front door open as I was standing and staring at the date on the page. I waited to see what would happen next and a few minutes later my mother walked into the room. She was wearing one of her old nurse uniforms and her arms were full of groceries. She looked tired.

"How are you feeling?" she asked me. She started taking items out of the grocery bags. "I had Donna look in on you a couple of times. She said you were sleeping pretty heavily."

Donna. I waited while the name sifted through my head. The neighbour. "I'm better, I think." I said.

She started passing me cartons of milk and juice. I opened the refrigerator door and started putting things inside. "Listen, that newspaper," I said, pointing to where it lay on the counter. "Is that today's?"

"No, it's yesterdays. You slept for the whole day." She picked up a package of laundry detergent and walked out, obviously headed for some other corner of the house.

I stood in the kitchen and stared after her. I did the math in my head again and again, but every time it came out with the same result.

Somehow I was once again 14 years old.

Comments

[silentq.livejournal.com]

It doesn't read like a gin-fueled story, but it drew me in. :)

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued by it. Sounds like a horror story in the making...

Huhm. Maybe I can find the time (and silence in the house hahahhah!) to write; I'm halfway to drunk...

[ladyclayton.livejournal.com]

You write remarkably well for a woman on her third gin. \m/

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Fifth!

Is this what they mean by "a fifth of gin?"