The 8th day

Contains graphic details of substance abuse and suicide 'Round and round and round, why oh why must I keep doing the same things? Making the same mistakes, will I ever learn?' Josh thought to himself as he stood waiting for his dealer.

Every day now for what had seemed an eternity, Josh had the exact same routine, he would wake out of bed around mid-day in absolute agony, every bone in his body screaming in pain, and he couldn't help but feel like a man twice his age, then he'll take a hit of what was left from yesterday's stuff to get himself perked up, along with a black coffee with no sugar because he didn't even bother to buy the simple things in life, he was lucky if maybe there was a couple of slice of toast he could eat, dry of course as he didnt have any butter, he would not even bother to wash himself, he'd put on the same dirty clothes that he'd been wearing since 2004, and his toothbrush? Well he'd used that to clean hard to get places when he was high.

His house was a myriad of junk everywhere and nothing much of any value, old newspapers, fag ends, tin cans etc, he'd spend half his morning rummaging through the junk, trying to find something worth selling to get money to score before the rattling began.

Dear reader if you have never experienced a rattle believe me, you really don't want to, your body overheats so you sweat buckets to cool down, your sweat lies on you as you cool and you start to get chills, so you wrap yourself up, but then the cycle repeats, along with this you get terrible cramps unlike anything you've ever felt in your life, it feels like Mike Tyson is punching you with steel gloves on in the guts and on the top of the head, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, in the worst cases your mind starts to play tricks on you, and you have horrid hallucinations, ranging from insects crawling all over you or even under your skin, to dead family members sitting looking at you with conviction, and following you around everywhere you look, in mirrors, doorways, sitting in rocking chairs, even when you close your eyes you still hallucinate, no my dearest friends a rattle is not a nice or pleasant experience, and not something I recommend.

Anyway back to Josh's daily routine, so if he manages to find something to sell, next it's off to the pawn shop with it, where he gets a measly fraction of whatever the items true value is, £8 for something which maybe cost him £80, next he goes to his 'spot' a patch of ground, where he sits begging with his can in hand, he will sit on the cold hard ground from around 1pm til about 9pm, 8 hours, just to make the other £12 to finally have his £20 drug money, people will mostly walk past and ignore him, some will slander him or call him names, some people will even go so far as to attack him, inside he doesn't want to do this, he despises having to sit there every day grinding day after day after day to get money, just to take his 'medicine' he feels embarrassed, ashamed, dirty, like he doesn't care anymore about his life, just another piece of junk sitting in the gutter, then he will go to the phone box and it will be out of order, so he will go to the next one which will swallow some of his money, finally after ringing umpteen times his dealer answers, he is to to go to a 'spot' a certain meeting place of his dealers choosing.

So now here he is standing waiting in the freezing cold, he can feel his rattle coming on, cmon D, he doesn't even know the dealers name, only an initial, he doesn't really care, all he wants is what D has, finally he sees headlights, at last, he rushes over and jumps in the passenger side.

"D I'm sorry I'm a pound short, the fucking phone box swallowed my change first time around" Josh said

"Cmon Josh you've did this all week, 10 days at a quid short is a tenner you know, I got my own overheads to pay off" D said.

"Actually you know what, nah fam I ent doing it for 19, get out my car"

"Cmon D please, please, I'm absolutely begging you, I've sat there all fucking day grinding this, please D" Josh pleaded

"NAH FAM GET OUT MY FUCKING CAR BEFORE I DRAG YOU OUT AN KICK THE UTTER SHIT OUT YOU"

Josh was terrified as he opened the passenger door he made a lunge for the bag in the dealers hand and bolted at top speed with the dealers full parcel, away he went through all the woods and lanes, he didn't dare look back he just kept sprinting and sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him.

By now D was probably ringing round his whole crew, letting them know a dirty scummy little junkie called josh had robbed him, he would tell other users too if they give him a kicking and get back his stuff they could have a freebie, nowhere was safe for him anymore.

After running for what seemed like eternity he finally found a nice quiet spot, he took the parcel out and counted, 17 bags of gear and 12 pieces of crack, oh you beauty! Fuck it, he thought, I'm dead anyway, as he cooked it all up into his syringe he took one last look around and said goodbye cruel world, he put the pin in his arm and injected the concoction, he felt a lovely surge of pure ecstacy as the drugs coarsed through his veins, finally he had broken the cycle, not how he had ever dreamed or imagined but hey, he was out, and he was moving on!

Police tape surrounded the field the next day, the body of a young male in his 30s had been found by a local dog walker, he still had a needle in his arm so police weren't treating the death as suspicious at the moment.

"Bloody shame," the woman who had found him said to the officers, "for the past week I've walked past this lad and saw him, today I was gonna see if he wanted to come work on my farm, I've got plenty money so I was gonna help him, me an my husband do all sorts of work in the community with vulnerable people and I could tell by looking at him he really wanted to change,"

"Yeah this is it, some people really are just victims of circumstance, it's such a shame that we as human beings treat our fellow human beings so cruelly but hey, such is life" the officer said.

"I actually know him, this is Josh mcdaniels my nephew," another officer said.

"Why didn't you try to help him?" The woman asked.

"We did, on numerous occasions, we tried our best, the little piece of shit stole our kids Christmas presents and everything, just desserts if you ask me" he replied

Yeah, it's a dark and cruel world we live in, and people hold grudges or wrong others, sunday will always blend into Monday, will we ever experience the 8th day?