Drunken footsteps echo through stairwells in the early hours of the morning. Stairwells that have witnessed a thousand casual histories as if it were no big deal. Which it isn’t. And which it is, because every footstep tells a story, and in the end, our stories are all we will ever be. The world ends on a Saturday night, not to be born again until Monday. We shamble. We kiss. Parks house ghosts. Empty parking lots house ghosts also. The only thing missing is junk food. Where’s a kebab van when you need one? Where’s a portion of cheesy chips to make the night more beautiful than it already is? One minute the weekend has just begun, and then before you know it, a cup of coffee blows away the misery of a twenty-four-hour hangover with the same intensity of an arctic wind stripping an infant of the clothes it needs to survive the winter. Y’know, like one of those ragamuffins from Oliver Twist times, all scrawny and begging for more as the jaws of London devour it the same way a junky devours the trust of a loved one. Rotting teeth. Bones riddled with cavities. A beach where there shouldn’t be a beach. A tiny figure eaten by the waves. A torso in the Thames wrapped in a sheet, the victim of voodoo shit the likes we couldn’t decipher even if we tried. Drinking on my bed, the smoke from our cigarettes shields us from view as the world at large slinks away. The stars in heaven shine, but our eyes are occupied with other things—the miracle of the flesh and the madness we find upon the steps where it leads.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US