The tide hit the rocks like white noise, pulling me back in. I had a fishing job in Littlehampton tomorrow so I stopped along the way to see my partner, Mel. The cool chatter of Brighton hipsters carried in half-heard whispers through the wind.
What? I said.
Someone with pink hair and nose metal glanced over at me, and then back. Mel danced over the tarmac; their arms were wheels of fire. My face was hot and throbbing. They saw me, blew out the torches reflected in their sharp eyes, and walked over.
Huh? I said.
I didn’t say anything, said Mel. My lips felt like they had a heartbeat. Look what you’ve done, they said. Wassat? I said. You’ve got blood all over your lips, baby. Have I? Yes, can you even see what you’re drinking from?
Was I drinking? I mean, of course. But, what was I drinking? And how did I get here? Surrounded by happiness and colour and fire. It was morning. I’d piggybacked on those leftover beers, hit the corner shop for a litre of Smirnoff; done the hour train ride from East Croydon to Brighton. It was now dark. I wanted it to be over.
I felt it run down my chin and then I looked down at the smashed neck of the vodka bottle. I was feeling reckless, stupid. You’re going to end up swallowing glass, for fuck’s sake, said Mel, and took the damaged bottle from me. I made a feeble attempt to snatch it back and fell into my own lap. I still need something, I said. I know, said Mel. They picked up the spin cap from the floor, poured and fed me a few shots. Thanks… when are we going? I don’t like these people. Mel rolled her eyes. You don’t like the people you’ve not said one word to? I said: So I have to speak to someone to know I don’t like them? Mel couldn’t help but laugh. I think they knew I meant what I said. Or believed I meant it.
Check this out, I remember saying earlier in the evening. And ran across the road, narrowly missing two screaming cars. The man was red.
We’d gone to the beach, shortly after I’d met Mel at their house. Then what? Mel needing my arms around them; me needing the bottle in my mouth like it was a dummy. Three people dragging me up the rock beach incline like I’d just drowned. Or because I had. I’d been acting stupid, grabbing Mel’s skateboard from them, pretending I was gonna high-tail it down the hill into traffic. One time, I managed to jump on, got half-way down and fell flat on my face. The man was red.
Are you going to be okay here, while I go flow for a bit? asked Mel. Ain’t goin’ anywhere inna hurry, I said. They went off and I tried to balance my head to watch them etch fire into the sky. How ya doin buddy? came a voice. What? I said. How ya doin buddy? I looked to my left. Some ripped boho hipster with a shark-tooth necklace and beautifully toned muscles. I’m fine, why do you ask? He sighed and put his arm on my shoulder. Panic. Then calm. It doesn’t really go anywhere from here, he said. Oh yeah? I said. I sucked some of the blood from my lips. He chuckled and took his hand off of my shoulder. Calm. Calm. You don’t have to shut yourself off, if you wanna talk. How do you feel right now? Tell me. I glanced over at Mel; they were lost in their flow. I glanced down just under the bench. They’d left the broken bottle of vodka there, hidden… but I wasn’t that far gone. I grabbed it and started necking it, feeling the sharp edges against my lips and chin. Dude, I don’t think you should… my new friend began. I croaked like a sick bullfrog, wiping the stinging mix of vodka and fresh blood from my mouth, smearing it onto my cheek. You know what your problem is? I said, looking straight past him. You pretend like you know. I don’t even fucking know. I pulled up the empty bottle in a fast swing and plunged the broken bottle neck into his jugular. He choked, sputtering blood onto his chin and into his hands. People looked over and were shaking their heads. Mel gave me a stern look and then resumed flowing. The guy pulled the bottle out of his neck and handed it back to me. He gripped his hand against the gushing entry wound for a while and spat a few mouthfuls of blood onto the tarmac until the flow slowed.
You’re looking for a little more danger in your life again, he said. I considered it. You could be right. And hey, sorry, you want a tourniquet or something? He laughed. My dude, we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you, he said.
He vomited blood onto the floor and laughed. Bro, l’appel du vide—the call of the void, he said. The call of the void? I asked. I felt sober now, not sober, but more focused. His neck wound, the blood, it was all gone. Yeah, he said, it’s like this whole idea, like, it can happen to anyone, for example, say you’re crossing the road and a bus is coming along and you suddenly have this wild thought that comes from nowhere that’s like, Just fucking do it, jump in front of it. You know what I mean?
The man was red.
Mel chased after me.
And then the noise was deafening and I couldn’t tell what was happening so I ran to the beach where I used to watch them flow.
I rested after a while and woke up just as the sun was edging us out of old dreams into new nightmares.
The tide was still hitting the rocks, pulling me out now. I had to resist. Panic crept in like pulsating vines all the way from my boots up to my skull. What had happened? I crunched laboriously along the beach for about a mile making my way towards the red man intersection, trained eyes still glancing up once in a while for the rare open-early beach front offie. I stopped fifty meters short of the crossing. Two ambulances and a black sedan with a bent bonnet. Three coppers and a man sitting on the kerb with his head deep in his hands, in another fucking universe. And then I saw it. The white sheet on the tarmac, shaped by a stigmatic frame marked with an archipelago of crimson islands. I dry-heaved. One of the coppers turned in my direction, so I chipped it as fast as I could down the beach, tripping three or four times as I shed all my clothes down to my trunks. I dived into the water, back into the salty womb of Poseidon. I heard indecipherable shouts from behind me, but I just kept swimming as far from the shore as I could. I would run out of steam soon enough. My skipper once told me he’d much prefer to die at sea than get pancreatitis again and spend months slowly dying in a hospital bed. If he’s going, he’s going doing something he loves. And it’s a peaceful way to go, he’d said. What? I said. Your lungs filling up with water until you choke your last breath, an immensely painful experience, so I’ve heard. He opened a beer, sat down next to me, and said, Fuck… One of those buzzwords of addiction is geographics, the idea that we can change our physical environment as much as like, but the addict inside you is parasitic. Why people figured that all fishermen were drunks and junkies. You can only keep running until you hit water eventually. I’d been treading for a good ten minutes now. The shore was far away, but I could just about make out the coppers on their phones. I found a shard of vodka bottle in my trunk pocket. I dug into one wrist and dragged the edge all the way down to the crux of the elbow. Then I did the same with the other. I lay on my back, floating on the current, imagining the patterns I was creating looked like some kind of red-on-blue Rorschach test. Tell me, what do you see?
BIO:
Rory Hughes is a British writer, music journalist, and author of the controversial novel, Theseus 34. His challenging short stories have appeared in publications such as BlazeVOX, Angel Rust, Fleas on the Dog, A Thin Slice of Anxiety and Squawk Back.
Urban Pigs Press 
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