The graffiti on the walls changes shape with the blinking of my eyes. My eyes are lazy, the same as my feet. I’ve been walking for hours. Perhaps weeks. I can feel the blisters on my toes just about ready to pop. Any second soon they’ll weep like a child. I’m going somewhere, I know it. By sense of smell alone, I’m guided like an arrow plucked from a bow. The corner of the street, bathed in the faint glow of a flickering streetlight, shimmers like a teenage dream. The old fish and chip shop stands derelict. Surrounded by a temporary fence, the structure crumbles like a sandcastle. It was once so vibrant and full of life, and on Saturday nights when the fear of death was far away, those the same as me gathered within its walls, drunkenly celebrating the joy of being alive. Now it slithers in the shadows, speaking a language I don’t understand. Like a snake. Like a worm. As nature reclaims what it once gave, places such as these become graves, with me the obligatory ghost wandering from piss-stained pillar to post.

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