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By Camilla  


 
 The figure lurched, singing out profanities into the creeping night. His old boots - held together with tape and string - seemed to find every crack and uneven paving stone with which to trip their owner. Yet still he carried on down the street, blackened fingers searching his tattered coat for the bottle he'd thrown away moments ago. Cursing one last time, the man settled himself on a convenient wall and changed his search, now groping for his battered Zippo and one of the dog-ends he collected. His motto - any butt could be re-used - had developed when he realised that his money for fags was eating into his money for booze. Leaning back with a sigh, he lit the second-hand tobacco and took a deep drag. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling.

    Then they snapped back open as a sound filled the air. Without moving, he strained his ears and held his breath, trying to hear it again. He sat long and still, but the noise never came again, apart from re-playing in his drunken mind. Relaxing back, the man took the chance to examine his surroundings.

  It was a dark, desolate street with tall, bleak houses shrouded in shadow and partly hidden behind gloomy, twisted trees and muted shrubs. Their stunted forms throwing a labyrinth of patterns on the pavement. The man peered up at them and the windows glared back, like crazed patients - their minds long gone; leaving simply the dark void of insanity. He shivered and averted his gaze instead to the dark jungle in front of him. The crumbled stone walls just as decrypted as the neat garden it long ago used to enclose. The rusted gate hung askew, blowing in the wind and adding a scraping cry to put voice to the lurking, creeping, malicious shadows that constantly flicked between the bent and staring trees.

   The man involuntarily shivered and drew his stained coat tighter around, trying not to look too closely at the darting shapes across the road. Again, he heard the noise! Louder this time; an eerie keening that rose in crescendo then dipped, before rising even higher. The man shivered and slid down, his back now huddled against the broken wall. The sound slowly died, and he took a deep, shaky breath; then immediately regretted it as brutal coughs pastimes through his body and exploded out in sticky blobs onto the pavement. Wiping his mouth with a nicotine-stained hand, he glanced up at the opposite house and froze - a light had appeared in the top window. In the attic. His mind scrambled for an explanation. What to do?
"Go and find out" the alcohol told him.
"Just go and have a look" it continued.

 The man stood up and brushed off his trousers in an attempt to slow down his beating heart. He took a step, forward, then another, the alcohol racing through his body filling him with false courage. Through the stunted jungle now, glaring in contempt at the rustling, prowling shadows with fierce eyes and shaking fingers. The man pushed the door and it swung open. He walked forward into the enveloping black. Dust clogged his throat and eyes, coating his tongue and making it thick and heavy in his dry mouth. As his eyes adjusted to the pressing pitch, he noticed a staircase and stumbled towards it - glad to have a fixed plan once again. He climbed the staircase, gripping the rough banister and ignoring the sticky kiss of cobwebs on his hair and face. Music started playing. It sounded like old classical pianos, played on a gramophone. The song was urgent and kept jumping and skipping as though the person couldn't decide which part they wanted to hear. It seeped through the closed attic door that lay ahead, and flowed around him - speeding up his breath and sending his heart into over-drive. He reached out and grasped the handle.

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