The Dead Mans Journal: Chapter 1

How am I standing on the edge of the world? Hanging in the abyss between life and death? How did I stray so far from my path?

The calming tones from the samaritan on the end of the phone, are suppressed by the concrete on my bare feet. The wind cuts through my bird's nest hair and salty tears flood my face.

‘I can’t.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Do it. Now.’

I refuse to believe my life has come to sharing 1200 square feet of roadside furniture and suits that smell like cheap cigarettes, with a woman who’d leave me for a Wayne Linekar lookalike.

I’m a child of this earth and it’s neglected me for too long.

‘Let me meet him, let me talk to him. Let me ask him why he made Hitler and the Atomic Bomb and Pistachio fucking ice cream.’

The good Samaritan demands;

Tell me your name. Are you Schizophrenic? Tell me what you’ve taken. Where are you right now? Does anyone know you’re out here?

Just the usual then...

‘Stop. Stop trying to help me, I’m too broken to be fixed with your calm tones and essential oils’.

I’m screaming now, rambling like the madman I always knew I could be. If he existed he’d be so proud of me.

I hang up on the kind women, calling her a ‘dumb bitch’, and dial her number.

Is it mocking me? That beep, beep, beep.

‘Hello, are you okay? Where did you go? Where are you?’

I tell her I’m fine, not to worry, I told her to tell my Mother I despised her, to track down my Father, finish the job and to kiss my Sister goodbye for me.

‘Don’t. We need you. I need you, please.’

Her voice sings to my ears with resonance only comprehensible to angels and their opposite.

I’ll step down from the ledge, but the journey is far from over.