The telephone ring reverberated around the room, slicing into my head with the shrapnel from an air burst mine. I opened one bleary eye and thought about how much my head hurt. About the bad taste in my mouth. About the sweat ran out of my skin and drenched the sheets. An unpleasant start to an unpleasant day.
I ignored the phone. I wasn’t in any state for conversation. My stomach churned. I staggered across the room to the kitchenette and pulled a coke out of the fridge. A few deep drags to settle my stomach. This also served as a litmus test: if I kept the coke down, then I was good to try for water, which would ease my pregnant head.
The results didn't take long to come back. A cold sweat in my eyebrows was all the results I needed. I staggered to the cold porcelain and hacked up bile. Beautiful bitter bile. Black from the cola. The physical manifestation of my many sins expunged with the expulsion of half a litre of acid from my body. When it was finally all out, I spat a few times, wiped the water from my eyes that the contractions had brought on, and sat on the cool tile floor, resting against the bowl. I was trying to summon enough mucus to spit the taste out of my mouth. It was a moment of quite reflection.
Shit my head hurt.
I found my coat draped over the back of a chair near the door, and rifled through the pockets. A handful of change, an empty cigarette packet, a pamphlet for some club or other. A condom in the inside brest. The coat stank of smoke, and there was a large brown stain on the lapel. I scratch and sniffed it: scotch and coke. My stomach churned at the smell of the booze. It disapproved.
I supplemented the handful of change with some other coins that I swept off the low table that sat by the door and headed out and down. I kept a firm hold on the banister all the way to the lobby, where I fed the cigarette machine coin after coin until finally the little orange light lit up. I selected my brand, and watched as sold out scrolled across the display. I mashed button after button with the same result, until finally one yielded the familiar kathunk of a soft pack being dispensed. I looked down to see what I had purchased.
Capri Menthol Superslims.
I considered my predicament for a moment. Just a moment. The fact that they were ladies cigarettes aside, they were still my only source of nicotine. I tore open the packet and sat down on the ornamental ledge that represented the lobby's clutch of long dead greenery and lit one of the long, elegant fingers. That cool menthol taste hit the back of my mouth, sent chills down my oesophageus and formed ice in my lungs. Like a mint factory burning down. Freshness that can’t be beat.
The old crone who lived in the ground floor apartment opened her door a crack and watched me sit there, judging me. I blew a smoke ring in her direction and winked. She shut the door.
I was sitting on a dead pot plant in my underwear, smoking a pack of oestrogen and holding back vomit. What was there here she could possibly disapprove of?
Good Morning
