Love, Pain, Guilt, Sex and Drugs
by Lee Carrick
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: Some strong ones.
Description: Vignettes from an itinerant life.
_____________________________________________________________________
GUILT: The Black Dog
I can’t sleep at my grandparent’s house anymore. I stay there overnight but I don’t sleep. Not because I’m too old to stay there or because they’re too old to have me; both are true but neither are preventative. The Black Dog won’t allow me to. He’s there waiting for me when I arrive. He sits at the window and watches as I walk up the path to the front door. He smiles, his sharp blood drenched teeth fill my eyes and I know I shouldn’t be there.
He greets me as I open the door, long before my grandparents realise, he knows; he always knows.
I feel a sharp pain on my back and shoulders and he’s attacked; his claws are deep in my skin, his teeth closed around the back of my neck and he whispers viciously into my left ear:
- We’re back again, are we Nicky? Hahahaha. How old are we, Nicky? Twenty seven or twenty eight and we’re back here again. You’ll never change. How is it you can travel all over the world, live on a different continent and yet always end up here, in your old bedroom at your grandparents’ house; you’re embarrassing.
My dark beast follows me wherever I go, he lays dormant in the good times, watches joyfully in the bad and is ready to pounce as soon as I show an ounce of weakness.
I always see his eyes first; dark green like a dirty pond and always wide in anticipation of my presence. If I look too deep into them I can see all the sins of my past simultaneously, they’re as vivid and as scary to me as an eighties horror film is to a nine year old child.
His tail is long, thin and wispy; old, red battle scars cover the skin where black fur once grew.
His mouth is filled with broken, razor sharp teeth that drip with the blood of my guilt. He’s a black devil that only I can hear or see. He’s an unwanted tattoo, and unwelcome guest and a malignant tumour on my battered soul.
The Black Dog Doesn’t need sleep, his body is rested and revived with the news of my transgressions. He punishes me with temporary insomnia; sitting on the edge of my bed, whispering and singing:
- Nicky Daniels, Nicky Daniels, open your eyes, Nicky Daniels. Why are you back here, you only come here when you need something from them? Do you remember when you would cry to your mother to bring you here; cry and scream and stomp your feet and slap the floor, do you remember? You wanted to come here because they gave you more, they let you be, they were easier with you and you could handle them better. You don’t love them any more or any less but you need them. They give you money and space and they cook for you, bring you drinks to your room, buy you the food that you like and go out of their way to make you happy. How dare you, Nicky? They’re old, frail and sick of you. Why are you letting them do this, Nicky? Just let them be, my friend, you are quickening their demise, you are the catalyst for their age and you are the reason for their ill-health.
The Black Dog can only exist when I give him a reason to be. He is me and I am he and yet I give him the excuses to be reborn every day and every night. My mistakes feed him, my sins grow him and my deviance gives him life.
- You’re masturbating, Nicky; you’re bringing yourself to orgasm in the room next to where your grandmother is sleeping. How can you search the internet with that sexual hunger salivating from your mouth; looking for ‘young sluts’, ‘Asian big tits’ or ‘BBW’ when you can hear the snores of your grandparents in the other bedroom?
What are you doing now, Nicky? Is that coke, are you going to do a line their house? Are you for real, my friend, these people brought you up, fed you, clothed you, saved you when you were stuck in Australia without any money to eat and you’re going to disrespect them by sniffing cocaine off the table. You’re fucking sick, hahahahahaha, no wonder they’re beginning to resent you.
I kill him with Valium, but the sedative will wear off and I will deviate again; and he will be reborn like an insidious phoenix from the ashes of my guilt.
DRUGS: The Crack Cook Book
Take a small plastic bottle, a 500ml coke bottle for instance, and strip it naked of all its advertising and its cap and then take a lighter and burn a small hole, about the size of a five pence piece, just above the middle of the bottle where the bottle begins to fatten. Now take a typical biro pen, bite the nib end off and remove the ink and then bite the top off. Fill the bottle one fifth full of water and push the broken pen through the hole you previously created. Now take some tin foil and place it over the top of the open bottle making sure to cover the entire drinking spout and then pierce the film with a pin approximately five times making sure the holes that you have created are small.
Put a good amount of quality cocaine on a tablespoon, mix it with about half as much bicarbonate of soda and stir the mixture in ammonia. Heat from beneath with a lighter, while holding the spoon at the handle taking care not burn yourself.
The mixture will begin to boil and the two individual powders will liquefy. Now, take a match and with the non-flammable end stir the mixture into a frothy white substance. As the liquid begins to cool take a knife and carefully scrape the forming crystals to the lip of the spoon taking special care not to pour anything onto the floor. Once this has been done and the rocks have formed and cooled, take some tissue and gently dab and soak up the remaining liquid from the spoon leaving only the solid, dirty white crystals. Now you have crack cocaine.
To inhale simply place a rock on top of your already made bong; heat with the lighter from above with your left hand, hold with you right and suck in the fumes that will now be inside the bottle and get high; simple as that.
LOVE: Never Trust a Fart
Hampi is a village in northern Karnataka state, India. It is located within the ruins of Vijayanagara, the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. Approximately a twelve hour bus journey from southern Goa, Hampi is a place like no other. The landscape is littered with huge boulders of various shapes that look like giant golden marbles left to the village after a Godly game of ringer.
The river that flows through the village splits it in half and as is sacred and so no bridges are allowed to be built; the only way to cross is by boat for ten rupees a time.
Small mountains, alive with monkeys and eagles, frame Hampi and provide a fantastic view of the temples when climbed.
It’s a stunning place where travellers go to bathe in the river, smoke charas in cushioned hammocks, ride motorbikes through the fields and climb one thousand steps to reach the summit of the monkey temple. Hampi is a place where people come for a week and stay for a month.
However, all is not perfect in spiritual paradise. A large percentage of the visitors to Hampi get sick; once or twice and sometimes severely they are glued to their toilets while their bodies evacuate everything except organs. Unfortunately hygiene is not as prevalent in Indian society as it is in Europe and so restaurant kitchens use river water to clean plates and utensils; the same river they wash, bathe, defecate, urinate and pray.
This was my third time in Hampi and the second time I had been sick, except this time I was so ill I struggled to walk the ten yards from the hammock to my toilet without feeling faint or vomiting and I was a little scared that I would have to go to a hospital.
I’d known Vicky for ten days. We met on a beach on the Karntakan coast and we were heading the same way; we decided to room together to save money, as is common amongst travellers. Vicky was twenty-four; three years my younger, she was from Taipei, Taiwan and she was beautiful.
In the ten previous days the relationship had been platonic, she had an American boyfriend back in Taipei and I was happy just to have the company. When I got sick she became very caring and I began to develop feelings for her.
As the sun was going down over the hostel gardens and disappearing behind the hills, we lay in embrace on the hammock, and I kissed her. She kissed back and we laughed childishly.
A few hours later we were in the room, kissing and fondling passionately. We were naked; she was a tiny woman with dark Asian skin, thick black hair, small firm breasts and a yoga flat stomach.
The pains in my gut and head insisted that I go no further and try to get some sleep. We got under the bed covers and went to sleep.
I awoke in the middle of the night, I was lying on a wet patch of sheet and I was horrified, I must have pissed myself in the night, I thought. How was I going to explain this? Panicked and without thinking I reached down to feel the wet patch, when I pulled my hands from beneath sheet it revealed a watery brown liquid. I hadn’t urinated I’d shit myself on our first sexual night together.
From the previous ten nights of sharing a room I had learned that Vicky was a heavy sleeper and this gave me hope. The bed we were sleeping on was two single mattresses pushed together and so all I had to do was remove my sheet and flip the bed before she woke up and then she would never know.
I got up slowly and crept into the bathroom, took a quick shower and washed the liquid shit off my backside and legs, all with the light turned off so as not to disturb Vicky. Once I was clean and dry I went back into the bedroom and began to remove the bed sheet from the bed, but it gave me unexpected resistance. The two single mattresses had one double sheet covering them. Vicky was asleep on the soiled sheet.
I had no choice I had to wake her. I lifted up the mosquito net and shook her shoulder gently; she opened her eyes and looked at me like I was a stranger before muttering something in Mandarin.
- Vicky, Vicky I’ve had little accident, I need you get up for two minutes.
She stood up and stood in the middle of the room, naked and cuddling herself against the cold Indian night. I quickly ripped the sheet off and threw it into the bathroom, turned both of the mattresses over and we got back into bed. She didn’t say anything so I hoped that she presumed I’d just urinated. We went back to sleep.
I awoke the next morning alone and paranoid. Vicky wasn’t in the bedroom or bathroom. I found her outside smoking a menthol cigarette and sitting on the hammock. She looked up at me and smiled.
- Nicky, you’re a shit fuck, she said playfully.
Two hours later we were packed and checked out.
HONESTY: A Life in Photos
- It’s not yours, she told him.
Now he watches his son grow up on Facebook
SEX: I’m Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time
- How does it work? I asked hesitantly.
- Simple, mate, just pick one, the bald Canadian said.
I had been in Thailand for one month and I found myself visiting an old friend who had settled on the Thai tourism island of Koh Samui.
- All you have to do is decide which one you would like to fuck and then you tell the woman behind the counter. You need to pay the bar three hundred Baht to take her away and then you pay the girl eight hundred Baht for the sex. She’ll take you upstairs, you get showered together and then you do what you want until you’re finished. Take another shower and come back down; nice and easy, my young English friend.
I was emboldened by the Canadian’s confidence.
- I’ll have that one with the fake tits and the dragon tattoo please.
I paid the bar and was led away by the smiling Thai girl to a room upstairs with and bed and a shower.
- Would you like long time or shirt time, sir? she asked
- Short time, please, I replied.
PAIN: Peacocks Amongst Pigeons
The peacocks watched with many eyes,
of blue and green and yellow,
as the pigeons tramped desolate streets,
like ants on leafless trees being fought over,
by crows and magpies.
As the doves soar the warless skies,
with love and passion beneath emancipated wings
The peacocks danced; their necks Indian ocean blue,
their beaks shining Sikh gold,
and the pigeons slept in barren gutters.
The peacocks watched with many eyes,
of blue and green and yellow.
As the vultures bloodied their beaks with murder,
hate in their hearts scattered by hollowed lions,
grotesque reflection and mad jealousy in puddles of brown and red.
As the eagles fly stolen cub in talons,
confused by power and blinded by fear and ignorance.
The peacocks walked with many lovers,
in forests lush of life and perfumed dreams,
and the pigeons pecked at scraps of humanity.
The peacocks watched with many eyes,
of blue and green and yellow.
As the raven sold hallucinations of death to the hopeless,
drip feeding their imagination with tales of godliness,
shooting their veins with the numbness of books and script.
As the owls hid in dark corners of shadows of surprise,
feeding on the gentle singing sparrows as they warmed strolling souls.
The peacocks delighted the imagination of the masses,
effortless allure drawn in blooms of elegance,
and the pigeons crushed their brittle skulls on closed windows.
Swearwords: Some strong ones.
Description: Vignettes from an itinerant life.
_____________________________________________________________________
GUILT: The Black Dog
I can’t sleep at my grandparent’s house anymore. I stay there overnight but I don’t sleep. Not because I’m too old to stay there or because they’re too old to have me; both are true but neither are preventative. The Black Dog won’t allow me to. He’s there waiting for me when I arrive. He sits at the window and watches as I walk up the path to the front door. He smiles, his sharp blood drenched teeth fill my eyes and I know I shouldn’t be there.
He greets me as I open the door, long before my grandparents realise, he knows; he always knows.
I feel a sharp pain on my back and shoulders and he’s attacked; his claws are deep in my skin, his teeth closed around the back of my neck and he whispers viciously into my left ear:
- We’re back again, are we Nicky? Hahahaha. How old are we, Nicky? Twenty seven or twenty eight and we’re back here again. You’ll never change. How is it you can travel all over the world, live on a different continent and yet always end up here, in your old bedroom at your grandparents’ house; you’re embarrassing.
My dark beast follows me wherever I go, he lays dormant in the good times, watches joyfully in the bad and is ready to pounce as soon as I show an ounce of weakness.
I always see his eyes first; dark green like a dirty pond and always wide in anticipation of my presence. If I look too deep into them I can see all the sins of my past simultaneously, they’re as vivid and as scary to me as an eighties horror film is to a nine year old child.
His tail is long, thin and wispy; old, red battle scars cover the skin where black fur once grew.
His mouth is filled with broken, razor sharp teeth that drip with the blood of my guilt. He’s a black devil that only I can hear or see. He’s an unwanted tattoo, and unwelcome guest and a malignant tumour on my battered soul.
The Black Dog Doesn’t need sleep, his body is rested and revived with the news of my transgressions. He punishes me with temporary insomnia; sitting on the edge of my bed, whispering and singing:
- Nicky Daniels, Nicky Daniels, open your eyes, Nicky Daniels. Why are you back here, you only come here when you need something from them? Do you remember when you would cry to your mother to bring you here; cry and scream and stomp your feet and slap the floor, do you remember? You wanted to come here because they gave you more, they let you be, they were easier with you and you could handle them better. You don’t love them any more or any less but you need them. They give you money and space and they cook for you, bring you drinks to your room, buy you the food that you like and go out of their way to make you happy. How dare you, Nicky? They’re old, frail and sick of you. Why are you letting them do this, Nicky? Just let them be, my friend, you are quickening their demise, you are the catalyst for their age and you are the reason for their ill-health.
The Black Dog can only exist when I give him a reason to be. He is me and I am he and yet I give him the excuses to be reborn every day and every night. My mistakes feed him, my sins grow him and my deviance gives him life.
- You’re masturbating, Nicky; you’re bringing yourself to orgasm in the room next to where your grandmother is sleeping. How can you search the internet with that sexual hunger salivating from your mouth; looking for ‘young sluts’, ‘Asian big tits’ or ‘BBW’ when you can hear the snores of your grandparents in the other bedroom?
What are you doing now, Nicky? Is that coke, are you going to do a line their house? Are you for real, my friend, these people brought you up, fed you, clothed you, saved you when you were stuck in Australia without any money to eat and you’re going to disrespect them by sniffing cocaine off the table. You’re fucking sick, hahahahahaha, no wonder they’re beginning to resent you.
I kill him with Valium, but the sedative will wear off and I will deviate again; and he will be reborn like an insidious phoenix from the ashes of my guilt.
DRUGS: The Crack Cook Book
Take a small plastic bottle, a 500ml coke bottle for instance, and strip it naked of all its advertising and its cap and then take a lighter and burn a small hole, about the size of a five pence piece, just above the middle of the bottle where the bottle begins to fatten. Now take a typical biro pen, bite the nib end off and remove the ink and then bite the top off. Fill the bottle one fifth full of water and push the broken pen through the hole you previously created. Now take some tin foil and place it over the top of the open bottle making sure to cover the entire drinking spout and then pierce the film with a pin approximately five times making sure the holes that you have created are small.
Put a good amount of quality cocaine on a tablespoon, mix it with about half as much bicarbonate of soda and stir the mixture in ammonia. Heat from beneath with a lighter, while holding the spoon at the handle taking care not burn yourself.
The mixture will begin to boil and the two individual powders will liquefy. Now, take a match and with the non-flammable end stir the mixture into a frothy white substance. As the liquid begins to cool take a knife and carefully scrape the forming crystals to the lip of the spoon taking special care not to pour anything onto the floor. Once this has been done and the rocks have formed and cooled, take some tissue and gently dab and soak up the remaining liquid from the spoon leaving only the solid, dirty white crystals. Now you have crack cocaine.
To inhale simply place a rock on top of your already made bong; heat with the lighter from above with your left hand, hold with you right and suck in the fumes that will now be inside the bottle and get high; simple as that.
LOVE: Never Trust a Fart
Hampi is a village in northern Karnataka state, India. It is located within the ruins of Vijayanagara, the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. Approximately a twelve hour bus journey from southern Goa, Hampi is a place like no other. The landscape is littered with huge boulders of various shapes that look like giant golden marbles left to the village after a Godly game of ringer.
The river that flows through the village splits it in half and as is sacred and so no bridges are allowed to be built; the only way to cross is by boat for ten rupees a time.
Small mountains, alive with monkeys and eagles, frame Hampi and provide a fantastic view of the temples when climbed.
It’s a stunning place where travellers go to bathe in the river, smoke charas in cushioned hammocks, ride motorbikes through the fields and climb one thousand steps to reach the summit of the monkey temple. Hampi is a place where people come for a week and stay for a month.
However, all is not perfect in spiritual paradise. A large percentage of the visitors to Hampi get sick; once or twice and sometimes severely they are glued to their toilets while their bodies evacuate everything except organs. Unfortunately hygiene is not as prevalent in Indian society as it is in Europe and so restaurant kitchens use river water to clean plates and utensils; the same river they wash, bathe, defecate, urinate and pray.
This was my third time in Hampi and the second time I had been sick, except this time I was so ill I struggled to walk the ten yards from the hammock to my toilet without feeling faint or vomiting and I was a little scared that I would have to go to a hospital.
I’d known Vicky for ten days. We met on a beach on the Karntakan coast and we were heading the same way; we decided to room together to save money, as is common amongst travellers. Vicky was twenty-four; three years my younger, she was from Taipei, Taiwan and she was beautiful.
In the ten previous days the relationship had been platonic, she had an American boyfriend back in Taipei and I was happy just to have the company. When I got sick she became very caring and I began to develop feelings for her.
As the sun was going down over the hostel gardens and disappearing behind the hills, we lay in embrace on the hammock, and I kissed her. She kissed back and we laughed childishly.
A few hours later we were in the room, kissing and fondling passionately. We were naked; she was a tiny woman with dark Asian skin, thick black hair, small firm breasts and a yoga flat stomach.
The pains in my gut and head insisted that I go no further and try to get some sleep. We got under the bed covers and went to sleep.
I awoke in the middle of the night, I was lying on a wet patch of sheet and I was horrified, I must have pissed myself in the night, I thought. How was I going to explain this? Panicked and without thinking I reached down to feel the wet patch, when I pulled my hands from beneath sheet it revealed a watery brown liquid. I hadn’t urinated I’d shit myself on our first sexual night together.
From the previous ten nights of sharing a room I had learned that Vicky was a heavy sleeper and this gave me hope. The bed we were sleeping on was two single mattresses pushed together and so all I had to do was remove my sheet and flip the bed before she woke up and then she would never know.
I got up slowly and crept into the bathroom, took a quick shower and washed the liquid shit off my backside and legs, all with the light turned off so as not to disturb Vicky. Once I was clean and dry I went back into the bedroom and began to remove the bed sheet from the bed, but it gave me unexpected resistance. The two single mattresses had one double sheet covering them. Vicky was asleep on the soiled sheet.
I had no choice I had to wake her. I lifted up the mosquito net and shook her shoulder gently; she opened her eyes and looked at me like I was a stranger before muttering something in Mandarin.
- Vicky, Vicky I’ve had little accident, I need you get up for two minutes.
She stood up and stood in the middle of the room, naked and cuddling herself against the cold Indian night. I quickly ripped the sheet off and threw it into the bathroom, turned both of the mattresses over and we got back into bed. She didn’t say anything so I hoped that she presumed I’d just urinated. We went back to sleep.
I awoke the next morning alone and paranoid. Vicky wasn’t in the bedroom or bathroom. I found her outside smoking a menthol cigarette and sitting on the hammock. She looked up at me and smiled.
- Nicky, you’re a shit fuck, she said playfully.
Two hours later we were packed and checked out.
HONESTY: A Life in Photos
- It’s not yours, she told him.
Now he watches his son grow up on Facebook
SEX: I’m Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time
- How does it work? I asked hesitantly.
- Simple, mate, just pick one, the bald Canadian said.
I had been in Thailand for one month and I found myself visiting an old friend who had settled on the Thai tourism island of Koh Samui.
- All you have to do is decide which one you would like to fuck and then you tell the woman behind the counter. You need to pay the bar three hundred Baht to take her away and then you pay the girl eight hundred Baht for the sex. She’ll take you upstairs, you get showered together and then you do what you want until you’re finished. Take another shower and come back down; nice and easy, my young English friend.
I was emboldened by the Canadian’s confidence.
- I’ll have that one with the fake tits and the dragon tattoo please.
I paid the bar and was led away by the smiling Thai girl to a room upstairs with and bed and a shower.
- Would you like long time or shirt time, sir? she asked
- Short time, please, I replied.
PAIN: Peacocks Amongst Pigeons
The peacocks watched with many eyes,
of blue and green and yellow,
as the pigeons tramped desolate streets,
like ants on leafless trees being fought over,
by crows and magpies.
As the doves soar the warless skies,
with love and passion beneath emancipated wings
The peacocks danced; their necks Indian ocean blue,
their beaks shining Sikh gold,
and the pigeons slept in barren gutters.
The peacocks watched with many eyes,
of blue and green and yellow.
As the vultures bloodied their beaks with murder,
hate in their hearts scattered by hollowed lions,
grotesque reflection and mad jealousy in puddles of brown and red.
As the eagles fly stolen cub in talons,
confused by power and blinded by fear and ignorance.
The peacocks walked with many lovers,
in forests lush of life and perfumed dreams,
and the pigeons pecked at scraps of humanity.
The peacocks watched with many eyes,
of blue and green and yellow.
As the raven sold hallucinations of death to the hopeless,
drip feeding their imagination with tales of godliness,
shooting their veins with the numbness of books and script.
As the owls hid in dark corners of shadows of surprise,
feeding on the gentle singing sparrows as they warmed strolling souls.
The peacocks delighted the imagination of the masses,
effortless allure drawn in blooms of elegance,
and the pigeons crushed their brittle skulls on closed windows.
About the Author
Lee Carrick is in his twenties. Originally from Newcastle, he now lives in Edinburgh. His biggest passions in life are writing and travelling, and he likes to combine the two. He has been writing poetry since he was 15, but only recently began to write short stories and his first novel. He was inspired to write by Ian Banks' The Wasp Factory and Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors.
Lee’s website can be found at http://leecarrick.weebly.com. His poetry can also be read at http://writers-network.com/members/carrick. And his blog is at http://scheemieintheroom.tumblr.com.
Lee’s website can be found at http://leecarrick.weebly.com. His poetry can also be read at http://writers-network.com/members/carrick. And his blog is at http://scheemieintheroom.tumblr.com.