Broken
You grab some clothes, which are thrown around the apartment floor. You put on some black, straight trousers and a dirty white t-shirt. Over your desk you find your leather shoulder pistol holster, which you put on. Your reflection stares back at you from the mirror hanging over your desk. Charles Bukowski once wrote on his older days that he looked like a dusty candle. Physically, you're neither young nor old, but you feel like hell, nonetheless. Actually, you're not that sure what you feel. Inside, you feel timeless, like you were never born, like you never had experienced anything in the first place, like a page of paper with coffee stains and dirt all over it, but nothing written on it. Numb. You take your cigarettes and lighter from the table and shove them inside your pant pocket.
Inside your bedside table drawer you find your .45 colt pistol. You like to keep it loaded and in reach. Your contacts, not even Don, know where you live, but you can never be too sure. Unexpected visits are always that, unexpected. You pull back the slide, chambering a round, set the safety on and insert the gun to your shoulder holster. You most probably won't need it, but experience and a few close call situations have taught you that being unprepared is bound to get you killed.
A brown, suit jacket is hanging from your bathroom doorknob. You grab it and wear it. Your head feels still a little dizzy, so you take a quick sip from the almost empty finlandia vodka bottle, which is lying sideways on the side of your bed. It burns your throat. That's how you like it. Just like your coffee and your cigarettes. Black and inhaled. It has to hurt. If it doesn't, you're not alive. You take another sip, emptying the bottle, and flip it over your bed.
Your door has three safety chains, one at the top, another at the mid section and the last one at the bottom, so it would take longer to snap them all off. They rattle as you remove them, one at a time, and open your apartment door. You have also a deadbolt lock, but you forgot, or didn't care to put that one on last night, drunk as you was. You take your keys from the top of the little table aside the entrance and step out.
Right outside your door are the building stairs leading up and down. The corridors continue to your left and your right for three doors each way. You feel your chin with your hand as you walk down to the first floor. Shaving might be in order, since you've forgot to do it for some days now. You wouldn't care, but there's no point in attracting attention by looking messy. You have to get yourself and your business in order. You can't go on like this forever. Right?
A couple is arguing on a doorway while you climb down the stairs past the second floor. A woman, tears and makeup running down her cheeks, yelling at a man: "What are we going to do now? Tell me! What now!?" The man is sitting, slouched against the wall on the red and black chessboard floor, hands covering his face, head between his knees. You try not to pay attention. You can still hear her voice on the first floor, so you hurry outside.
You turn left and head towards the parking lot behind your building. You cross paths with a thin, tall girl, around 6 feet, with short, white hair, as you pass trough the street door. She's smoking on a cigarette and doesn't seem to mind putting it out even though she's going inside. As you walk past her, her almost white, silvery eyes nail on you, and you quickly look away. She might have been pretty once, but it seems like life's getting one over her. You've seen her before. You think she's your neighbour, but you're not sure on what floor her apartment is. Some junkie, you think. Better not to provoke them, or you'll find a knife between your ribs before you know it. Strange girl.
You come to your car. It's old and worn out, but it's yours. You open the driver's door, sit on the familiar, brown leather seat and slam the door shut. A cig finds its way into your mouth. You light it, start the car and drive off to the Beauburg.
Inside your bedside table drawer you find your .45 colt pistol. You like to keep it loaded and in reach. Your contacts, not even Don, know where you live, but you can never be too sure. Unexpected visits are always that, unexpected. You pull back the slide, chambering a round, set the safety on and insert the gun to your shoulder holster. You most probably won't need it, but experience and a few close call situations have taught you that being unprepared is bound to get you killed.
A brown, suit jacket is hanging from your bathroom doorknob. You grab it and wear it. Your head feels still a little dizzy, so you take a quick sip from the almost empty finlandia vodka bottle, which is lying sideways on the side of your bed. It burns your throat. That's how you like it. Just like your coffee and your cigarettes. Black and inhaled. It has to hurt. If it doesn't, you're not alive. You take another sip, emptying the bottle, and flip it over your bed.
Your door has three safety chains, one at the top, another at the mid section and the last one at the bottom, so it would take longer to snap them all off. They rattle as you remove them, one at a time, and open your apartment door. You have also a deadbolt lock, but you forgot, or didn't care to put that one on last night, drunk as you was. You take your keys from the top of the little table aside the entrance and step out.
Right outside your door are the building stairs leading up and down. The corridors continue to your left and your right for three doors each way. You feel your chin with your hand as you walk down to the first floor. Shaving might be in order, since you've forgot to do it for some days now. You wouldn't care, but there's no point in attracting attention by looking messy. You have to get yourself and your business in order. You can't go on like this forever. Right?
A couple is arguing on a doorway while you climb down the stairs past the second floor. A woman, tears and makeup running down her cheeks, yelling at a man: "What are we going to do now? Tell me! What now!?" The man is sitting, slouched against the wall on the red and black chessboard floor, hands covering his face, head between his knees. You try not to pay attention. You can still hear her voice on the first floor, so you hurry outside.
You turn left and head towards the parking lot behind your building. You cross paths with a thin, tall girl, around 6 feet, with short, white hair, as you pass trough the street door. She's smoking on a cigarette and doesn't seem to mind putting it out even though she's going inside. As you walk past her, her almost white, silvery eyes nail on you, and you quickly look away. She might have been pretty once, but it seems like life's getting one over her. You've seen her before. You think she's your neighbour, but you're not sure on what floor her apartment is. Some junkie, you think. Better not to provoke them, or you'll find a knife between your ribs before you know it. Strange girl.
You come to your car. It's old and worn out, but it's yours. You open the driver's door, sit on the familiar, brown leather seat and slam the door shut. A cig finds its way into your mouth. You light it, start the car and drive off to the Beauburg.