By Richard Al Ledger

i

“But why? Why do you have to talk to them?”

I gesture with tight open palmed fingers splayed as we wander staggered down the long street. It's cold. It had recently been raining. The streets glistening - intensified by the filter of alcohol, small puddles sat in tarmac potholes reflecting the blackness.

Shutters down in rows, open pizza boxes sit on top of waist high walls with dangling crusts, its late. Only the rats and the yellowed moon, only the square pegs in a round world, the bitter and the broken are still awake. Even the ghosts are asleep, the wind taking respite.

“Why wouldn't I? What's the problem with meeting people? I like to talk to people.” She replies with a strain in her voice, both our voices bold in the nothing. She is beautiful, her hair fair, skinny with great hips, a dusting of freckles on her soft nose, she has a fury and a sadness in her green blue eyes, the eye liner dribbled with eye moisture.

“We're going out, me and you, together. Isn't that enough? You know what they all want anyway.”

To fuck you like a fuck doll, I think but don't say.

My retort is quick and rehearsed and afterwards theres a new chill between us as I inevitably return to the familiar diatribe.

The streets are deserted. Not even a passing car or wandering fox. Even the cats are curled up at home warm on couches, the homeless fitted in the corners on cardboard and nestled in shadows.

“I can't do this anymore. I was just talking to them, Alex.”

Her voice is hopeless, my stomach sinks as I realise I have broken her spirit again.

Yet I cannot stop. Not my intention but my drinking brings on a paranoia coupled with an intrinsic need to hear my own voice. There is ego there, and I am also deeply unhappy with my own life and the alcohol does nothing to quench these feelings - quite the opposite in fact.

“I can't do this either, but why won't you just listen!?”

I stop dead in the street in protest - to make her see reason, maybe - She continues walking past me, not giving me the courtesy of eye contact or the recognition I so desire. “I mean how hard is it to just – listen!?”

The words linger. Bouncing from the chippy signs to the wet walls that surround us. She eventually stops dead in her patent heels and spins around with a slight wobble.

“I can't do this anymore Alex! It's the same shit every time we go out. I talk to a couple of boys, so what? Doesn't mean I'm going to fuck them does it?”

It might do.

“No it doesn't Alex! It's just exhausting having this argument every single time and I can't do it anymore. I'm so fucking tired of it.”

“So am I, Jessica – So am I. We'll talk about it in the morning.”

“No” She says. “I'm not coming home tonight. I'm sick of it.”

This is new.

This has never occurred previously.

This particular retort.

I stand in the middle of the street watching her walk away in the silence. Listening to the beat of her heels against the stone pavement. Her silhouette getting smaller and smaller, the beat disperses into the night until not there at all. My eyes fuzzy, focusing not quite right, dim street lights leaving streaks like magic, my heartbeat races. I hear a glass bin dump in the distance and it sounds like every possible sound imaginable all at once.

I sway gently, weighted on my toes against the lack of any breeze. I wipe my dry mouth, probably an anxious tick and finger my scalp, realising that I'm getting drizzled on with dampened fingertips. I'm just waiting patiently for her to turn back around, to start walking back this way to apologise, or at least give me the opportunity to apologise. A couple of minutes pass and eventually it's just me stood in the middle of the road on my own with the closed shutters, the shifted yellow moon looking down upon me accusingly.

ii

The bustling noise of humanity, the metallic clang of cutlery. Plastic chairs pulled out and pushed back in, a regular occurrence. A child cries, reprimanded by their mother in a crouched position. I imagine how many farts are in the room currently, lingering.

“I don't even remember, really.”

I place the tray of food and my iced frappuccino down on one of the last few remaining free tables and take a seat, pushing an empty old lunch container off the table and onto the tiled floor below, brushing crumbs from the polycarbonate surface. I get old ketchup on my finger which sends a shiver down my chest cavity and I suck a quick breath. Some new music in the background above chatter and laughter, the late lunch queue growing larger across at the serving kiosk.

Gertrude - or Gertie for short - sits down opposite me with her lunch. She's been my best friend since high school – the last of my only true friends - the others flittered away over time with partners and babies to become just memories and occasional social media updates, changing faces through profile pictures that I hardly recognise with flattened eyes.

She has a petite round face and a rather harsh brunette bob which frames her features with intention, I enjoy the way her hair waves, sort of with a weight but its uniform in it's movement. Her eyes slanted upward slightly at the ends giving the suggestion of asian blood, though I don't think any has existed in her family, though in truth I've never asked. She dresses well, so very – her. I've always liked that about her.

“What's that shit on your finger?”

“Ketchup.”

I reply whilst pulling a napkin from the knuckle up the finger.

“Why do you have ketchup on your fingers?”

I ignore it.

“You must have said something to piss her off that much that she left you.” She unwraps her salad box as I pull my sandwich from the paper sleeve. “You know how to push her buttons, Alex.”

She hasn't left me, exactly. She just won't return my calls. Or tell me where she is.

Gertie is a vegetarian and I am too but not entirely – I try. I unveil a squelchy barbecue beef roll from the wrapper which seeps out of the sides and onto the branded greaseproof paper, I suck my finger in the most unsexual manner.

I notice Gertie glance at me and my smelly sandwich and in that moment judge me wholly.

“She was flirting with some men and I called her out on it.”

I'm as matter of fact in tone as I can possibly be holding barbecue beef.

Pppff-! I feel a droplet of her saliva on my fingernail.

“Come on Alex.”

What.

I reply – it is more statement than anything else, intentionally.

“What!? You've always been the jealous type. Yes, she's really hot but has she ever given you inclination for a second that she's the type to go chatting to other guys in that manner? To get dick. Especially when she's out with you? I really don't think that's her thing. She's not a slut.”

If you only knew.

I don't reply, I simply bite down on the crust around the beef in protest. The silence filled only with Gertie's accusing stare at both me and my lunch as she pours salad dressing over her leaves.

“You need to figure your shit out Alex.”

Gertie dribbles her salad dressing down her hand, licking her finger and the inside of her knuckles of the white transparent residue, it's similarities to jizz not even debatable. I clench my buttocks. I choose not to tell her it looks like she is licking up cum.

“Jess isn't one to go fucking around with the first guy she meets.”

Maybe you're right.

I reply in my head again - biting into the soft tissue, the flakes of meat break down in my mouth flushed with both barbecue sauce and spit. Maybe.

iii

“Want to go grab a drink?”

We step outside into the warm mid afternoon sunshine, leaving the relentless queue inside the diner behind and walking into car noises, the smog, rushing public. I stop to a halt suddenly - on the tips of my toes to avoid a woman wearing a floaty yellow dress and headphones whom walks straight across me - I curse the back of her head with a voodoo verse which is instantly forgotten.

We'd manage to move past the Jessica thing and talk about her rampant sex life which included both men and women, not necessarily exclusively at different times either. I enjoy hearing her stories of sordid sex romps and awkward mornings and morning after sex, wishing I could maybe dip my toes into that same pool, an enjoyable sex life with less consequence. Trying as I might not to think about the likelihood of an inevitable green spot on the end of my penis and a shameful trip to the doctors.

A short brunette girl in hot pants with a more than ample posterior walks past me and I find myself following it with my eyes, even more so as she passes, until my neck reaches its turning limit and I realise just how much I'm gawping. I turn back and act humble.

“Typical bastard.”

I hear from in front of me, immediately knowing the source and context.

I shrug my shoulders and smirk out of one side of my mouth, purposefully not meeting eye contact with Gertie, as a large male with broad shoulders brushes past me and makes me feel entirely insignificant.

“Sure, we can get a drink?”

My eventual reply as I succumb to the feeling of guilt over my outwardly lusting stare. Suddenly I feel perverted and very alone.

“Great, I know a new place.”

Gertie replies with an eagerness I find pleasant – she doesn't seem to mind – she is something of a whore herself – she wouldn't outwardly admit it I'm sure, but if I asked her directly she would. She loosely grabs the fingers on my right hand which prompts me to move in her direction. Her skin feels soft, she is warm and slightly sticky, and the body contact is not wholly unwelcome.

Maybe I wouldn't necessarily use the word whore.

iv

We find ourselves in some kind a kind of dark faux 1920's speakeasy that opened just last week near to where we both live – at least it has great air conditioning – Like all the great speakeasy's of the early twentieth century that had great air conditioning. It's busy but we find a table in the corner against a wall of recent internet purchases hung on newly painted plaster, a picture in a gold frame of an overweight ginger cat smoking a Marlboro.

We continue to talk about our work and sex lives some more before the conversation inevitably returns back to my situation with Jessica.

“You should just fuckin' call her man.”

Gertie fucking puts it all on the line – never one to beat around the bush - her lips around the rim of the martini glass, her eyes hanging there above the nose – they are securely fastened to my gaze, waiting for my reply, or at least a reaction.

“She should call me. She's the one who walked off.”

My left knee rocks in agitation and I acknowledge it by crossing my legs and allowing my foot to dangle outwardly, which instead only causes my foot to fidget back and forth with brisk rotation.

I'm agitated by the conversation.

“You're the one who accused her of cheating.”

“I asked her to rethink her priorities when we're out socialising.”

Which still seems fairly reasonable to me.

“Alex, I know you. You should call her. You should be the one to call. You don't know your tone sometimes, you can sound like a real mean fucker.”

A personal attack creates a rush of anxiety within the ribs but also an internal acknowledgment that this isn't the first of such comment in my adult life.

No. She should call me.

I immediately look at my phone, like some sort of self imposed torture device. There is nothing else there but her beautiful face looking back at me on my home screen. I think back at the time the photo was taken, not so long ago, and it fills me with a kind of special joy that fills my throat with dread and a grey lump.

v

“Two shots of tequila!”

She shouts at the bartenders face almost nose to nose over the thumping music with drunken disregard. For a second I thought they might kiss.

“I shouldn't really.”

Tequila often makes me sick.

The bartender – young and that unique pale pale only achieved by gingers, with bright eyes and an androgynous face. He looks at me with a intentional stare for clarity and confirmation of Gertie's order. I concede, nodding in agreement regretfully and seemingly in no time handed a small measure of low quality tequila in a plastic shot glass. I toss the lime, ignore the wet salt sachet on the bar top and neck the shot. There is a burn in the throat and a heat I also recognise as cold at the back of my tonsils, I swallow down hard on a secondary sensation, a rush of saliva in the mouth and it is over. Taking a sip of beer from the bottle to regain neutrality in the mouth.

“Do you want another?”

Gertie looks up at me, she has movement in her legs down to her small feet which I struggle to interpret whether dancing or unsteady. She grabs my hand with her fingers, even stickier now and hot and I notice she rubs my palm with her thumb affectionately.

“Do you want another?”

“Yeah fuck it.”

I squeeze her arm and lean over the bar to get the bar tenders attention, I feel a hand on my lower back which almost moves under my t-shirt.

vi

“So what do you do?”

She is very beautiful but getting a song out of her is proving difficult. However, having invested into the conversation with an expensive round of cocktails, I decide to try and gut it out.

“I'm in marketing.”

We sit under the warmth of the orange outside heater, the night sky past that then a thorough blanket of black highlighted with only the blemishes of the strongest of occasional starlight or alien spacecraft passing between us and the sun.

Through the glow of the electrical heat provided by the impressive outdoor patio, she has a curved face with a not ill fitting strong nose and wild hazel curly hair which frames her relatively small face and thin wiry frame well. A dress that bares her shoulders I find most pleasing, in an 1980's John Hughes movie sort of way.

I look back around into the venue and see Gertie mingling with two men just in front of the queue at the bar, which appears to be going successfully. She laughs hard and open mouthed, so much so I can see the dangly thing in the back of her throat, the mouth clitoris thing. She touches one of them on a thick tattooed arm – He must moisturise those arms regularly – I choose to look away and reengage with the woman under the bright orange glow as I feel a strange sense of jealousy churn in my stomach.

“What do you do?”

I notice she holds my gaze and we share a moment – she is very pretty – before she takes a sip of her very expensive cocktail and breaks away to look directly forward at the sad looking man in front of us who is smoking alone.

“I'm a writer.”

I'm not – I've never been a writer – I've never written.

“Oh wow cool, a successful writer.”

It is amazing how these drunken conversations work – filling huge gaps – details both internally and externally forged from blanket replies and statements to create a thin layer of narrative – just enough – a necessary amount of enough to get through the vital pinch points – to an inevitable journey – a right of passage – our conversation ultimately closing in either moving to the next heartbeat after a glance or the both of us necking under manufactured heat.

We're not really listening to each other, nor do we really care for each other nor our replies to each others questions, we're just talking out of our mouths trying to work out if we want to spend the night together or not. We both want too I think, but we will let the universe decide, and I hope I don't say anything too intrusive or shocking, reason for the universe to backlash and scorn me unnecessarily.

“Oh yeah, I love writing.” I reply with a bravado which is ill fitting.

That's really hot.

You can touch it, if you want.

I look back over to Gertie and notice that she is passing something or being passed something by one of the tattoo'd limbed men she's been speaking too for the last thirty minutes, the great pecs, a thick neck carrying an angel wing behind the ear. Probably her phone number for a night of sordid threesome sex later on, whilst I watch, probably. I hope they'll let me watch.

It occurs to me that if they asked me if I wanted to watch I'd very much say yes, yes I will watch.

Just then a full hand sits on my lap well above the knee near the crotch curl in my jeans and I turn my head back around. The curly brunettes face is lent forward, intimate spacing between us now and at such close proximity that I'm sure I can smell cigarette on her breath. She has her eyes closed and lips pursed, up so close to me I can see the grainy complexion of thick makeup on her skin with beads of sweat struggling through pressured clogged pores.

I lean in and kiss her and it's awkward but not unpleasant, as is usual the first kiss with someone it doesn't flow particularly well. My assumptions of cigarette being correct, and I contemplate whether she'd like another tongue in her mouth.

I hold her petite waist above the trouser line and kiss more forcefully as a rush of blood to my penis makes my thighs tighten and scrotum clench. The timer on the outside heater expires and we are plunged into relative darkness with laughter and I use our sudden immersion into blackness to fondle a tit.

vii

Where did you get them from?

“Oh just a guy that I met earlier.”

The guy with the massive arms?

“Yeah Machine Paul, why is that a problem?”

Machine Paul.

He's called Machine Paul and you're wanting me to take a hallucinogen we bought from him and put it in my mouth!? Are you fucking serious?

Why isn't he just called Paul. I like the name Paul.

“I bought from him and, yeah.”

Just Paul is a good name.

My concerns seemed legitimate and Gertie does little to dissuade my apprehensions. We walk a little further.

Machine Paul.

“Who were those guys anyway?”

I look at the tiny little transparent piece of paper between my fingers. Fingers coated with a light pungent slippery film of the curly haired woman's vagina juice. It smells pleasant as I pass my hand over my nose and face.

Just Paul is fine.

I never did get her name.

Not Machine Paul I bet.

“He's a drug dealer I know from being around.”

Have you fucked him previously?

“But don't you think we should know more about this Machine Paul before we start putting things bought and, or supplied from him in our mouths?” I sound concerned and like a drag.

Probably.

I add “But fuck it let's just see what happens ey? Life's pretty shit anyway, right?” to lighten the mood, even though I don't really believe myself.

Machine. Paul.

Everything is hazy at that moment and quite beautiful. I am almost certain we are opposite the beer garden where I spoke too and then fingered Curly Sue (Should have at least got her name).

I can hear the muttering of low brow chatter and moronic shouting the other side of a wall which we both stop to lean against, then sitting on a patch of dead lawn – mostly just soil with the occasional scrub of yellowed grass, scattered crumpled cans of lager and empty glass bottles. Those with red Slavic labels.

I look up at Gertie and see a mog cat.

There's a cat sitting next to us purring. I have no idea where it came from or how long it has been there listening to us.

A slightly overweight ginger mog.

Gertie is sat next to the cat inspecting the acid tab on her finger end.

Gertie sure is beautiful in this light, much like her spirit which exudes the brightest of all in these late nights. She has dragged me from the dark today and I see her skin sheen against this newly born day, framed by brightly lit white clouds which hang above us, just a smattering but they highlight the canvassed black so excellently, and seem so calm up there too – but also sort of lonely.

“On three okay?” she says, stroking the mog.

Okay, in three.

A glass smashes on the other side of the wall and people cheer.

“Three!” She shouts and it hurts my ears. The cat flinches before soon returning to a resting position. At that moment I am sure Gertie whispers something to the cat and it understands her.

Gertie sticks out her green and blue-ish tongue and places the tab of acid on the end of it licked up, retracting the organ back into the mouth house and smiling broadly, her eyes wild yet tired but more so excited – she is staring at me and saying a lot with her eyes.

I'd noticed the tab had a very small heart printed on the front before it disappeared within her gob. She then sits expectantly and watches whilst I do the same holding a grin – we do not speak but she leans over and hugs me tightly, squeezing around my neck muscles which feel tight and it is pleasantly welcome – in the silence it also somehow means more. I roll the tab under my tongue and leave it there. My heart races.

viii

Afterwards we decide to walk back around to the front entrance, but they don't let us back into the bar – the doormen proclaiming that Gertie is too drunk or had just taken cocaine, suggesting with finger pointing and a hand on the shoulder, both these things simultaneously. Her wild eyes a giveaway, the licking of the inside of the gums, the jittery head movements.

In truth she might have taken cocaine, as she so often did, but she swore to me she hadn't, though I knew most likely she had – probably cocaine from Machine Paul – and that she also probably felt bad about lying to me – but right in that moment I didn't care.

So instead we walk down the street to a little spot on the corner. Hanging baskets outside which at least meant, to me anyway, that we were less likely to get stabbed by the locals. I'd never been inside before as they didn't serve food and opened after 8pm, it wasn't my crowd. The cat was following us a couple of meters behind but staying close. Gertie mumbled something under her breath and I wasn't sure if it was intended to be for me or the cat.

There was a chill in the air and suddenly I realised that we were amidst the absolute dead of night. Just before the sun would begin to rise on the horizon, before that break in the tone, something about the quiet at this time that was familiar and made me at ease, that and the streets with rolling shutters. People were eating pizza on street corners – huddled and swaying – not saying much – dropping food and belongings. A woman was laid on the floor with her legs in the air and I could see her panties clearly and a little bit of her vagina.

We walked into the bar – there was no doorman – but not before saying goodbye to the friendly cat, who turned and wafted it's tail at us as if an acknowledgement, we ignored the obvious butthole. Inside it was dark and sparse – only a couple of tables around the edges, and weirdly no seats at all – everyone was stood. I was glad to see the crowd were mostly couples minding there own business, a couple of stranglings sneering at the tender at the end of the bar, hunched. You can always spot those types a mile off, common in most late night establishments – those with dead wives eyes. The entire venue was lit only by fairy lights, there was a boars head on the wall, and a mule deer head and an impala head. They were all just staring. There was a picture of a young Elvis is a bronze frame and a picture of an overweight ginger cat.

We walked to the bar and got ourselves a drink from the flirty guy behind the bar. He was handsome but looked as though he didn't sleep or eat enough. There was a smell to the bar of old piss radiating from the bathrooms that I found unpleasant to linger in.

“Shall we go see if there's a beer garden?”

Yeah.

I looked at Gertie and she looked smaller and like the mog cat. Then I blinked and she didn't look like the mog cat at all, but yet still shrunken somehow. I took that as both a good and bad sign. We made our way through a back door to an outside bit of the bar built up with grey breeze block, not unlike a small recreation yard in a prison, the kind that you'd see in prison films – it was basic with three wooden picnic tables in the middle of it and no heating or music.

That's when I saw her.

ix

“You should have called me.” I grabbed her arm and then immediately let go, knowing it was the wrong thing to do. I was using my pleading voice, it was nasally and high pitched I could tell.

It would have meant something.

She was with a man. Although he was sat down I could tell he was tall – taller than I was – just, a better tall – hard to explain – but somehow I knew that he was that.

“Go away Alex. Can't you see I'm on a fucking date?”

It was immediately upon hearing that sentence I was broken. That had broke me. I was broked.

I hated it when she swore.

I hated what she was wearing.

She'd bought it since leaving me and I hated how it looked on her.

“What about us?”

What about us?

“There is no us.”

She drank her vodka and cranberry juice. I knew it was vodka and cranberry because that was a drink she liked and drank often when we went out to the pub and it was red.

“Red, like my broken heart.” I heard my own voice but couldn't feel my mouth move.

“What?”

The man stood up, sure he was tall. Even taller than I presumed. He towered over me. If the sun were in the sky, he would have blocked it out, no doubt about it. But because it was nighttime, the light didn't change at all.

“I think it's about time you should be off, pal.”

The tall man had made up his mind and made his intentions clear.

Jessica looked down into her vodka and cranberry juice and she didn't look back up at me ever again.

Gertie grabbed me by the hand with her hand, gently she started trying to usher me away. I went along with her wishes – I clasped her fingers – I didn't belong here anyway. I wanted to say way more – sure – but I was floored. A strange rush both of depression and adrenaline, a strange sense of adulation and complete blackness, that – in perpetuity it seemed.

Then the rainbow came. An arched magnificent flood of colour. The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my entire life, and it smelled so good. Its roots landed close to us, so close in fact that when it did so the impact reverberated through the soles of my feet and my along my toes, so I looked at Gertie and without speaking we both agreed right there and then to go search for the pot of gold.

And, Yippee!

YIPPEE!!

“I think the acid has kicked in.” I said, I could tell my pupils were dilated because I could see everything ever. I looked at Gertie and stroked her arm, she looked a wonder.

I think it has, too.

I knew the tall man was still behind me hovering, but suddenly I didn't care. I didn't care at all. I didn't care at all that he was The Devil.

x

We stepped out of the bar, walked through the doorman. He was a nice man, with a big bushy beard and friendly eyes and just a delightful looking face and transparent, no mass.

The cat meowed and trotted towards us. In the short time we were in the bar the mog cat had learnt to speak English fluently.

“Did you smell that?” The mog said.

Yes we did, how could we not? Unmistakable. Wait – did you mean the piss or the rainbow?

Yes.

“I think it's along this way.” The cat pointed with a perfectly formed fleshy finger, adorned with a gold wedding band.

We agreed it was that way, so we went that way too. The sky had brightened now and was the most gorgeous of blues, a turquoise sort of blue green. The rainbow was still there, as present as ever, still smelling just wonderful, but seemed to be slowly moving away from us – like we couldn't catch it – like we weren't supposed to catch it.

I looked at Gertie and she looked at me, and just then I remembered why exactly she was my best friend. It was because I loved her deeply, and always had. I never wanted to not look at her ever, it depressed me to think of a time when we wouldn't be looking at each other.

I stopped and said.

“Are you okay?”

I am, are you?

I said yes I was.

We hugged again, and this time it was more of an embrace.

xi

We tried to get into the previous bar again but they still wouldn't let us in. For one we were both tripping heavily on acid, that and Gertie was also holding a cat in her arms like it was the son of God.

Soon after was when the rainbow disappeared. We both agreed that we couldn't see it any longer, and so it must not be there. The sky was still full of colour, but it was changing. More of a murky green now, and those previously white clouds now held a pinkish hue, which was not unpleasant.

The cat never spoke to us ever again that night, at least not in fluent English. We returned to speaking to it in pspspspsps, and the mog seemed to understand perfectly well enough.

After being denied entry for the second time we went to the pizza shop that seemingly never closed and got served by the wonderful Ganesha pizza maker, he had six arms and a wonderful smile we both commented on – even then, when he was still very busy and he was incredibly skilled, very good at making pizzas – I could have watched him for hours and quite possibly did in fact. Thats where Gertie ate pepperoni, though she admitted she'd eaten a pork pie the last time she had taken acid just last weekend. I didn't know what to do with that information at the time.

When we'd finished mostly just the cheese and meat we left the pizza box on the wall for the universe to deal with. I remembered a similar pizza box on a similar street corner the night Jessica walked away and never came back, and I wondered if it had any interrelatedness at all to some parallel analogy of my life. Or was it just a pizza box, and the previous pizza box was now on some enormous garbage heap below pigeons and seagulls skimming the earth, looking for scraps, trying to use the same time I was using. I'd soon forgotten the thought entirely.

Gertie and myself decided to spend the night together and we hugged ever so tightly right there on the pavement – it was remarkable the way she fitted inside of my arms – difficult to explain just how precise it felt. It didn't feel sexually motivated, at least not initially, and even though I felt like the acid was wearing off slightly, I still knew that I loved Gertie more than a friend and I was processing internally it was possible that I always had – so I decided to tell her.

“Gertie, I think I love you more than a friend.”

It's the drugs.

“I don't think it is.”

I think it is.

“I don't think it is. I don't.”

Are you sure?

“I really think I'm sure.”

OK, then it's time.

“Time for what?”

Time to tell you, tell you that I love you too.

“More than a friend?”

Yes.

More than a friend.

It was always more than that to me.

She was wild, and intense and she was so broken. I didn't think I could fix her – I didn't feel that was particularly necessary anyway, nor my job to do in the first place. See, I too was broken – just then in my mind I couldn't stop thinking about how I felt like we both had broken bits that maybe needed fixing – that we both also had some spare parts to give away, some of which we could potentially give to each other if they so required – those particular parts could potentially, potentially be used to repair some of the damage done to each other, by others – from those times in the past when things had broken and we didn't necessarily realise at the time – in that moment I thought about this a lot, in great detail in fact. A spark plug for the heart, a ratchet for the soul. A large screw nut for a dodgy knee. Spare oil. That sort of thing.

We never did get together, nor did we really ever talk about it again.

Gertie took the ginger cat home and it stayed with her for another seven and a half years until it died of old age. She named the cat Just Paul – Recently she told me at a small gathering Gertie had for Paul when he passed away that she heard him speak fluent English only twice more before he died, coincidentally both times were after she had dropped acid. I never did acid ever again.

Whenever I went for a walk outside alone, and the sun hid behind a cloud even just for a short period of time, I thought of the tall man, and I wondered if he was again stood behind me.

End.