melancholia

I am shaking, I'm so angry.

He's sitting on the sofa, his lips half-open, drool sliding like a fat slug down his chin. He's breathing deeply, but he isn't asleep. I know he isn't, he's just floating on a heroin cloud, softly and gently, better than sex he said. That's why he hasn't touched me in three weeks. Because his dick only reacts to a needle now, nothing else.

What makes me angry, so fucking angry I could take the knife from the kitchen and swiftly slit his throat, is that it isn't just him anymore. I peer into the living room and there's a whole gang of them, skeletal creatures that are slumped along my carpet, watching the television I paid for, smoking my cigarettes. They look like the undead, grotesque puppets held up by strings of drugs and lies, their eyes almost popping from their sunken sockets. The dips of their bellies look like gaping mouths and one of them as a baby perched neatly on the kitchen top, asleep in its little basket. A baby. A fucking baby, in my house, where in the next room junkies are shooting up. I wonder if it's breast fed, in which case its probably a junkie too.

I'm so angry I hurry over to the kitchen sink and vomit up my breakfast.

This is it, I seethe, my knuckles turning white as I grab hold of the side, steadying myself as I take in heady breaths. This is fucking it, I can't take anymore of this shit.

I grab a jumper off the radiator, go into our bedroom and take every last penny I can find, just so the dirty fucker has to sell his soul to get another hit. On my way out I pause besides the baby, look down at its calm, sleepy face. Poor thing, I think, poor little thing, you probably won't know your parents in the future, when social services take you away.

"It'll be for the best," I tell it. "You'll be safer."

I leave and I know I'll never come back.

--

"I think we should get a pet."

I pause in trying to get my mochi cakes from their packet to my mouth using only chopsticks. My fingers wobble so bad that my sticky rice often gets flung across the table and it takes Jet five minutes before she can eat again without spitting it out laughing. Sushi dinners are fun dinners in our flat.

"What kind of pet?" I ask, wiping my mouth so that the sweet sauce smears along my lips. I try to lick it away, but it's so sticky. Jet is watching me, curiously following my tongue as it trails over my skin.

"I was thinking..." She pauses and looks back at my eyes, not even bothering to hide her smirk. "I was thinking a dog. Or a cat."

"What about a snake?"

"I don't think we could afford the mice on our simple wages, love."

She's right, of course. After a few weeks of lounging like a listless fox around her flat whilst she went out to sell records on her tiny street store with a man that looks like a British, working-class version of Barry White I finally got a job. I work in a musty comic-book shop, selling comics I know nothing about to men twice my age. It's not that bad, I think, because the owner is a sweet girl with chubby cheeks that always fold like a hamster's when she smiles. She lets me put on whatever I want, record wise, because now I have adapted to Jet's life I am starting to embrace the world of music. Sometimes the customers see fit to try and start a conversation with me, about comics, normally, with a hesitant little smile and a blush, and it's then that I feel myself withering away slowly. Normally I never notice when people flirt with me and Jet has to point it out (usually quite loudly, in front of them, with slit-eyes and a sweetly sneering mouth, her arm wrapping around me possessively) and I don't know how to make them leave.

Now I pay rent and don't feel like a total dosser, wearing her clothes, eating her food, listening to her records. Instead I pay half, buy my own clothes and buy both of us new records whenever I can. She likes it when I get her something she hasn't heard of before, like it's a present, or something.

"A cat would probably be better," I say. "Coming and going as it pleases. A dog will want attention a lot."

She eyes me with something akin to amusement, something deep and filthy and as black as her crow-feather hair. I wonder if she thinks the same of me, just some little creature she took in, trembling and underfed, a pet for her to play with, to treat like family.

She wouldn't think that of me, would she?

"I like cats," she says, her lips curling. "They're a lot like you, don't you think?" I blink at her, uncertain. "Stray cats, all quiet and defensive and alone. Then you befriend them and they're like aloof loyal soldiers. You're quite like that."

"An aloof cat soldier," I muse, vaguely irritated. "Lovely."

"Well, before I let you stay here you were quite a bitch to me."

I look up sharply, my fingers coiling around my chopsticks. What is she talking about?

"I'd never met you before then."

She smile gets wider, slightly twisted, slightly bitter. My heart begins thumping like a basketball, loud and rumbling, echoing straight to my guts, making them squirm.

"You did, love, once or twice, in the clubs. Amongst the Soho Sleaze."

"Really?" My voice comes out a sharp squeak, all tender-bellied, like a baby tickled for the first time. "I... I don't remember
that. Was I mean?"

"Quite." Her tongue gleams as she runs it over her teeth, like a hungry fox spying a wounded rabbits shivering in the undergrowth. "In the worst way. You ignored me. I hate being ignored, especially by those I like to look at."

I stare at her, my eyes narrowing. On my plate my sushi doesn't look as appetising anymore.

"I'm sorry," I murmur, putting my chopsticks down and reaching for my glass of wine. "I don't remember. I'm sure I didn't mean it."

"It's alright," she laughs, "I got you to notice me in the end." An awkward weight settles in my stomach, heavy and thick, like I've eaten too much cake and it has clogged my veins with icing and jam and sponge. I don't know how to react, don't know what to say. Life with Jet is a series of awkward moments, punctured by alcohol and drugs and music. Much like any life, I suppose. I sigh and rub my eyes.

"I'll get that cat, then," Jet declares, reaching over to nab a piece of my uneaten sushi. "You can name it, if you like."