Chasing the Dragon

I feel the strangest compulsion to jump off the balcony.

It isn’t a depressive desire, more of an unnerving compulsive urge. No doubt inspired, by a gravitational influence.

The heat was oppressive, although not overbearing - just constant – sweat inducing. The fifteenth floor afforded a panoramic view of all the other apartment blocks.

The black night behind low cloud, cast an eerie hue, glowing with the reflection of the city lights.

A cigarette. A drink.

Smoke. Drink. Sigh. Recur.

Silhouettes flicked from one apartment to the next, lights being switched on and off – dark figures going about their business like characters in some shadow box pantomime.

Hanging clothes up to dry in windows and ranch sliders. Small shapes of children darting from one lit room to the next. An array of geometric cubes encasing lives and stories.

I still hadn't figured out if the city slept yet.

Horns chimed, echoing up from the busy streets below.

10pm and silence begged release.

The black night glowed with neon and the sound of drunks. The smell of fermenting cabbage hung heavy in the thick air.

I inhaled the last of a cheap cigarette and flicked its remains deftly out the window – watching its red ember pirouette and diminish as it fell then scattered in small sparks on the concrete below.

I am stood for a moment contemplating its descent and destruction, and then the slabs of life painted on the skyline across the way in the other apartments, beckoned my attention once again.

A cough broke my voyeuristic reverie. A soft Asian banter grew louder from the unit two doors down as if approaching the door to the dark empty corridor. Nobody exited.

I breathed again.

All the tall buildings in this city were apartment buildings.

I looked out again and could find no gaps between the overlapping silhouettes of the concrete monoliths.

In the daytime – no horizon, no ocean or trees in the distance, just miles and miles of concrete, steel and teeming life.

And here I am alone.

A stranger in a strange land.

A fugitive from reality.

A dream within a dream.

Smoke. Drink. Sigh. Recur.

I have slipped back behind the bars of the cage. I am inside the Zoo again. I guess when there’s no one else to romance, the next best thing is to do a number on your self. Right?

The walkway to the apartment entrances was long, lined with sliding glass windows – about fifty meters in length I guessed.

I left the windows open in the walkway outside the apartment so that air, no matter how dense and smog-laden, could creep inside my room’s window. Affording some small form of oxygen to my weary drunk brain once asleep inside.

Instead of impossible sleep, I pour myself another whisky and coke from the freezer.

Napoleon, cheap and nasty; my eighth battle tonight with the French general.

I take a book from my pile of recent purchases and park my arse on a borrowed couch in someone else's living room.

Ranch door open on the other side of night now.

The noise and heat still the same – low, deep, constant, but kind of nice and familiar. Safe almost. Yeah, safe and good warmth, like a brandy glow or body stone.

Sort of like that bodily numbness after regular sex.

Shit, I don't know . . .

Slowly but surely, I slip back to the west through the words on the page and a growing numbness in my brain accelerated by the sweet cheap whiskey.

The ching of the elevator snaps me out of a dull thought.

A half drunk dream.

I put book down and investigate on indented alcohol legs.

The night is still heavy and dim. At each end of the corridor – two red lights on the wall glow ominously, like the eyes of a devil. A ghostly central green exit light casts its sick colour over the lift foyer.

Another cigarette. Another drink.

Smoke. Drink. Sigh. Recur.

Things have quietened down to a whisper. A quick perv across the courtyard, trying to make out breasts and tight stomachs, bare asses at a hundred meters in windows lit with little light.

God, I must be desperate.

My western weakness so apparent. So disgustingly obtuse and transparent. So basic, yet so unsatisfying. The cigarette feels good in me – that savory taste of death mixing with the low-rent alcohol makes me want to burn this city up.

Just roll it all up and smoke it like a big fat joint.

Chase the dragon baby. Another drink? Jump?

Smoke. Drink. Sigh. Recur.