Loss (2 and 3) (613 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.8 on 14 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by jeveux... (View user info) at 2005-12-13 08:27:19 EST
Part 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/80825
2
As a certain eighteen year-old finally falls asleep in his harbour-view studio apartment, just down the road, where the fucked and forgotten sleep, Bridget is just realising her good fortune. The boy has left over $800 behind.
In fifteen minutes Bridget has her fix. It is her first in almost a week and it goes in so smoothly. Better yet, she has enough to last her for a fortnight and even buy some food and a coffee.
Thirty minutes after their brief meeting, Bridget has forgotten the boy altogether. She is feeling elated because she has never had this much heroin at her disposal before. When she was younger it was never a problem to get a fix; pimps generously doled it out as did some customers, so she never needed much at a time. In more recent years, however, it has been a struggle.
"To hell with it," she thinks, "I'll have more."
She careful lines up the second full syringe with the least damaged vein on her arm. Slowly she squeezes and, a week after her last hit, she can relax at long last. Her mouth feels dry and she is nauseous but it is ok because she is relaxed. She feels warm and heavy and tired and white clouds loom in her eyes and her breathing becomes first shallow, then faint, then almost non-existent. She is too relaxed.
* *
3
The waiting room is painted bright pink; a designer's nightmare today, it was doubtless a dream thirty years ago. I am sitting on one of those hospital chairs in the free clinic on Macquarie Street. I have told the nice woman at the counter that I need to get tested but she does not know why, or she would treat my case with a little more urgency, surely. My eyes float around the room resting, finally, on the wall-rack containing all the information pamphlets, or more specifically, the pamphlet on AIDS. I take one.
"HIV invades the cells of our immune system and reprograms the cells to become HIV-producing factories," I read, "and once AIDS manifests, a person is susceptible to many different infections." Great. "HIV has also shown the ability to mutate, which makes treating the virus nearly impossible."
I put the pamphlet down and try to calm myself. I breathe deep, count to five, and then exhale. I do it again. I am not calming down. My heart is so fast I feel like a coke-head. I try to calm myself by plugging myself into my MP3. Pachelbel will calm me or at least diver my attention from my impending horror. I think about what my customers would say if they saw my iPod. None of the meaningless dance tunes they all adore, or even the R and B. It's my dirty little secret and aside from my parents, only one person knows. And I don't talk about her anymore.
Although it has only been five minutes since I arrived here; at 9 o clock, right on opening, it feels like hours. I am desperate for any distraction. I cannot allow myself to believe I'm even here, because if I'm here then there is a chance I'm sick and I can't be sick, I'm too young. I'm too smart, and well, my parents are too respectable. This doesn't happen to people like me.
At six minutes past nine, my distraction arrives. She is about 5'7, brown hair, blue eyes, and has that aura of beauty that I know not everyone will pick up on. She looks young, like me; maybe she is just out of school too. Why is she here, I wonder? She goes to the counter and says something I cannot hear then sits down across the room. I watch her and when she looks up I smile at her. She looks away, awkward. She is wearing a long flowing skirt and a loose fitting singlet top and is exactly the kind of girl I used to date. Not since I started selling would a girl like that date me, not that I want to date anyway. Not now, not ever. But still, it would be nice to talk to her. Right up until I tell her I am here because a dirty syringe pricked me at 2am last night. Well I suppose it was the hag that pricked me, not the syringe. The conversation would stop being nice then.
I try not to look at her too much because I do not want to make her awkward and I'm almost relieved when the nurse opens the waiting room door. She does not need to say my name because I'm already looking straight into her eyes and I know they are ready for me. I get up, and suddenly I feel like I'm going to vomit. She ushers me into a small room with a table and two chairs. It reminds me of the exams we have all just finished because the table is too small and the chairs uncomfortable. She tells me to wait here for someone from social services, to come and help discuss what exactly I need to be tested for. I try to interrupt her and tell her that is not necessary but she does not listen.
"We'll be with you as soon as possible," she says, and is gone.
To be cont.
User Reviews
Submitted by extacy_red (user info) at 2006-03-07 09:47:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
More please
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-01-26 12:05:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bizantine (user info) at 2006-01-14 20:00:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
doubleplus good
Submitted by morontian (user info) at 2005-12-20 15:19:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't have anything constructive to say. I'm easy to please.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2005-12-20 11:42:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by MandaPanda (user info) at 2005-12-18 23:39:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Just catching up.
Submitted by jagmcmanus (user info) at 2005-12-15 05:52:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2005-12-13 21:33:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ignore Snark too. He's not black - He's Canadian.
Worse.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-12-13 21:30:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-12-13 08:39:02 (#)
Ranking: 1
Maybe it's the structure. It does seem a bit clunky at times. Perhaps a little more poetic flow?
I dunno.
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2005-12-13 10:44:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
really liked it.
Ignore Berty. He's black.
Submitted by jeveuxgagner (user info) at 2005-12-13 09:19:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Maybe i'm being silly but to my mind this works much better with italics.
Submitted by Fabit (user info) at 2005-12-13 08:39:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Loving these. Can't wait for the next one.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-12-13 08:39:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Maybe it's the structure. It does seem a bit clunky at times. Perhaps a little more poetic flow?
I dunno.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-12-13 08:38:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Seems about right. It just seems to lack something, although I couldn't tell you what. I wish Shandy would take a look at this, he'd know what to do.