The Metho Drinker By Chris Bentley

The wind stirs the braces of conformity of a man who sits on a deserted park bench numb in his discomfort. He weeps into his dirty shirt which wafts with the stench of stale piss; he takes another sniff from his glue can, dirty and worn. Though, still able to restrict his frail mind from thinking he may have deserved better in his wasted life.

He begins to think, his thoughts swirl so hard that he falls from his bench, hitting the ground with nothing more then a feeling of disbelief. Blood may drip from his skinned nose onto his ratty pants embedded with the filth from the city, but he remains neutral with the world. He wobbles on his bandy legs as they reach full extent under a cold moon chiselled in the night, the heat of the methylated spirits he was shooting many moments earlier begins to curdle his stomach.

In the fields of time, he may not have left a mark, but he will always remember what it looks like to see time stand still before him. Ever since he stopped to watch the world, he was forced to look at the same day pass itself everyday in repetition. Seas of pain and desires may lap at his ankles, but his knowledge of life forbids him entering the water. He cannot show his weakness to this world.

He sways and leans against the cold hard steel of the bench which had supported him before. The only thing that ever really belonged to him, he vomits. His stomach violently turns itself inside out and onto the pave walk. He withdraws with force and falls onto the sinking ground and wraps it over himself. He feels so warm once more. His flesh may be cold and numb, but in his decadence he feels heated and safe. He lays sprawled over the ground, a soft shudder forces him to close his eyes, his brain hitting the sides of his skull and his cranium trying to work itself out. It pounds away relentlessly to the beat of footsteps.

The cold eventually weaves its way through his deadened veins and sprouts like wildflowers unforgiving; he’s at his own body’s mercy. His throat feels like it’s slowly icing over, he cannot feel his own lungs move, he coughs, he splutters, he vomits once more. His long tangled hair now ingrained. The bell tower rings 12 times, and he lies there with no shirt. In his absence from Earth he must have discarded the rag he calls his own. Technically, his body is too frail and chemically unbalanced to move and far too limp to use effectively, literally, he cannot bring himself to a stand, his aching joints and disrupted stomach screams itself into his vacant mind.
Dormant he sleeps, without actually moving he’s drawing himself closer to death each night. Growing into his numbness he waits, lame and stupid for the hand of the reaper to guide him away from this existence. ‘Depressing’ he thinks in contradiction with the rest of the world. His personal fight with passion, this has always been about him. His life may have been at stake, but he’s not the one who should be worrying, when his final days come to pass, it will be the city council who will have to remove his corpse. The last of life’s twists becomes clear.

The sun beams out onto another empty day, pushes light over one more empty man. Shirtless he wonders why he is alive and begins to decipher social complexities under his own breath. He sits alone on the edge of another bleak day, in self thought he feels lost, he has seen the cogs of life and yet, he feels like this is not enough. The man who everyone shuns is likely the only one with a shred of sense and he knows this. He sees it everyday while the children act older then their age and the forty year old women wear revealing underwear and try to reclaim their youth. With no-one to impress, he sits satisfied in his silence, shortening his life with every drink.

He draws some more fumes through his body with a mighty breath (gritty, he winces) and sits back on his bench alone…