Sunrise: Monday, April, 22 2013

ALL BLACK, ALL RED CHAPTER INFINITY

He sat there, thinking. He thought about his father. He'd been a nice enough man, but he'd never had enough spine in him to hold straight a sole blade of grass in the lightest of winds. He thought about his mother. Momma. She'd been strong enough for the three of them. Even now, ensconsed in earth, her flesh munched away by its critters, her strength seemes to push him on whenever he felt to weak to do anything. Like the last of the mummies, she remained steadfast as the one true thing in his life. The girls, the booze, the money, the guys - they were all passing air. But momma, she stayed and she stayed forever. He stood up from his solitary couch, noticing as it creaked under him. He walked over to his small dirty window and thought some more. Looking down into the street he saw a girl that reminded him of Terry. Was it her walk? Was it the way she dressed. Or the way the kink on her head stood, immovable in the wind? He sighed and took a drag from his ciggarette. He sighed again and put his tobacco stained hand on his chest. God he missed her. His Terry. His one night stand. His lover for one night. Useless thoughts, his mother's voice came to him. He walked back to his chair. Again, it creaked. And he noticed it. He took another drag, sighed and closed his eyes. "What am I going to do now?" With his left hand he reached for the papers on the small table next to his chair. It was his payslip. Nothing but debt. Two thousand shillings to his name, rent unpaid for three months, the eviction notice still stuck to his door, hunger that he couldn't satisfy and a job he used to have.
Terry.
How was he going to find her. Useless thoughts, his mother's voice said again.
"But I need her."
What you need is a good punch in the gut. That will teach you to feel sorry for yourself. No son of mine will behave like a spoilt, lost, little lamb.
"You're dead. What can you do?"

The answer never came.

*****
Moha woke the next morning with a stiff neck and a mouth full of acid.
"Jesus!" he jumped at the blackened table top and the ashes that had once been his payslip. Even that he had lost. The damn cigarettes would be the death of him. Stretching delicately his now weakened body, he dragged himself to his bedroom, now bedless. He'd had to sell a few things just to buy a bus ticket and a few cigarettes to keep reality at bay. A few things being everything but the little table, the chair he'd blacked out on and the jacket draped over it. And his books? Those remained. He'd rather starve to death and have the landord bang at his door every minute of every day, than live without the escape those pages offered.
"To hell with truth..." he mumbled as he walked over to the sink in his bathroom, hoping to rinse the acid out of his mouth, and give his face a cold splash. The taps were dry.
Cursing, he reminded himself that he would do the same thing if his tenants did what he was doing now.

I need your strength momma, he thought. Then...
"I NEED YOUR STRENGTH MOMMA!" he yelled at his reflection. His head began to pound more from the effort than from anything else. Cradling it in both hands, he sank to the floor and wept. He wept like a man defeated. He wept like a man whose only next move, was a gun to his own head.