The Guy Who Had All The Time In The World (6/8) By Joe Hakim

(1/8), (2/8), (3/8), (4/8), (5/8), (6/8), (7/8), (8/8).

I decide to take a trip to the butchers down Whitefriargate, one I haven't got round to 'cleansing' yet. I cycle there because it's quicker and I don't need to pick anything up. As I pull up outside the shop I can see the meat still displayed in the counters. As I walk in, the sickening stench and the legions of maggots and flies I expect to greet me are notable only by their absence. The bright lights of the shop eliminate the sun-bed hue of the sky, so I make my way behind the counter and pick up a joint of lamb. I sniff it and turn it over, holding it up to the light like a hunter inspecting his catch.

It looks pale and ashen, the colour of a kid with a broken arm, but other than that, it doesn't appear to have decomposed at all. It doesn't look safe to eat - it looks kinda inert or something - but it doesn't look rotten.

I leave the shop and light a cigarette, looking up. There's too much going on here, too much design; there's some kinda plot or reason lurking just below the surface, but I have neither the brains nor the will to discover it. I raise two fingers up and shout FUCK OFF as loud as I can, so God, or the alien zoo-keepers, or the producers of the biggest most fucked-up reality TV in the world ever, or whoever the fuck it is behind all this shit, can hear me, and then I go home and get stoned and thaw out a steak to eat for my dinner.

Thinking about the future, thinking about whether I'll be able to survive like this for years on my own without going mad; thoughts like these send me spiralling into a depressive day, which, as it turns out, is pretty similar to a recreational day, except I stay in bed and don't get out of it for what seems like forever. And I wank a lot more, if that's possible. The three watches on my arm say eleven pee em, and it must be late because I'm pretty smashed. I have plenty of dope and plonk left, but I'm running out of places to rob coke from.

There's no point in raiding houses at random, because it would take too much time, so I've started smoking a bit more brown than usual, and I've also started robbing chemists and taking barrel loads of prescription drugs - uppers, eggs, anti-depressants, the whole fuckin' lot.

I'm taking a lot of shit, but I've got it under control. I haven't started smoking crack just yet, but I keep some in the flat just in case, y'know, I have to work up the balls to kill myself. I hate to admit that I'm thinking about it, but I'm the last person on Earth for fuck's sake. It's too much, it's too weird. I mean, why is the fuckin' sky purple? I fuckin' hate purple... Where has all the petrol gone? The list of questions is getting longer every day, and there are no answers in sight. The things I watch, the games I play, the stories I read, the girls I wank over - that's the world I live in.

The fictional world that I've immersed myself in is more real than the bad copy outside the window.

I'm just going through the motions, maintaining the pretence of existence. I might be having some sorta breakdown. The other night I made the stupid mistake of watching George A. Romero's Dead trilogy and The Omega Man. I'd been doing a lot of speed, so I freaked out and convinced myself that there are zombies hiding around every corner, waiting to strike. Sounds mad, but at that time it seemed to be the only serious contender for an explanation as to what happened to everyone.

Continued...Next Page (7/8)

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