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

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

Eventually, I come, and it lands all over her bed covers. As soon as I finished, the vacuous empty feeling that always follows a wank washes over me, and I'm hit by the sheer ridiculousness of the situation; me, sat in a girl's bed that I barely know, her knickers over my head, surrounded by the smell of my own spunk...Is this what the end of world's about? I'm thinking, Have I been spared just so I can spend every day getting out of my head and slowly turning into a smackhead and a fuckin' pervert?

I get out of the bed and pull my pants up. I walk around the room, not quite knowing what to do with myself. I start rummaging through her things, just for something to do, and I stumble across her diary, hidden in the bottom of her wardrobe. It has a little lock on it, but it's easily broken. I'm hoping it's full of stuff like her innermost sexual fantasies, but as I read, I'm disappointed to find that it's just shit about her job and gossip about her mates. As I get to the end I reach the bits I'm really interested in - the bits about me. She writes about meeting me and Carl and then I read a sentence that completely stuns me...I can't believe it...the motherfucker...in the last few entries before the 'event', the little slut reveals how she was meeting Carl on the sly.

'We'll have to keep it a secret because of Evan (That's me). If we're still seeing each other in a couple of weeks we'll tell him and then we can stop sneaking about,' the diary says in curly black biro letters. I have to read it a couple more times before it finally sinks in. It shouldn't bother me - I mean, they're both gone now, like everyone else - but it does. It hits me like a punch in the guts. I can feel my blood boiling, rage creeping up from my belly into my arms, and I pick up her hair-dryer and fling it at the full length mirror near her door, smashing it, and then I turn over her wardrobe and kick it to pieces. I start smashing everything up, and when I finished with her bedroom, I set about the rest of the house.

All the feelings, all the terror, the paranoia, the anger - everything I've been feeling over the last few weeks comes flying out like lava spewing from a volcano. I turn into the Tazmanian Devil from the cartoon and I break everything in the house, tear it to shreds...I'm out of control and my vision blurs and I'm shouting and I seem to black out for a bit, and when I come to I'm sat on the pavement, puking in the gutter, still crying and screaming, trying to catch my breath. I turn at look at the house. All the windows are smashed and broken bits of furniture and electrical appliances spill out onto the streets.

It looks as though the house has been caught in a tiny earthquake which has somehow left the rest of the street miraculously untouched.

I leave my flat less and less now. My drug supply is shrinking and I'm getting to the point where I've pretty much watched everything I want to watch. I've played and completed most of the video games I'm interested in. To keep me occupied, I've developed a bit of thing for the wanton destruction of property. Last week I smashed up Queens Gardens police station, just for a laugh. I've decided not to leave Hull, I mean, what's the point? I may as well stay here and continue with my counterfeit life.

Every day, I set myself tasks, things to do, just I have little reasons to keep going, keep living. I've built a Lego effigy to myself in the backyard. I'm setting up the most elaborate Scalextric track ever in my next door neighbour's house.

I shoot clay pigeons from my backyard. I hit golf balls as hard and far as I can down the street, not caring what they hit. I've got myself a skateboard and I'm learning a few tricks, but I have to be careful because I'm so out of it all the time I keep falling off. If I break my leg or something, I'll be fucked, and I'm not going like that. When I do decide my time is up, when I reach a point at which it all gets too much, it's gonna be quick, I'm not down for any long drawn out suffering. I'll go to the Humber bridge or somewhere like that, just get fuckin' loaded and jump into the water.

But I'm not gonna do that just yet; tomorrow's a new day and I just might find another reason to hold on. I might even find some answers.

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