Memoirs of a madman

A Chapter by Jacques

A small extract from a book I am writing just to see if you guys and gals like it. I'd especially like it if you could say whether or not it provoked an emotional response of some sort. Thanks'

Those days were a blur. I don’t remember many of the nights, but then again none of them were really worth remembering. Pointless memories that I can’t seem to recall is all they amounted to. Never more than four hours of sleep a night, whether or not that was due to me being drunk for most of it or the fact that I could stare at the walls and the ceiling for hours without end. Despite how much I looked at those damn walls, I don’t recall what colour they were or how the patterns on the ceiling interlocked. There was a mess of nights around summer break that I didn’t sleep for days; I just stared out of the window above my bed into the light polluted sky and counted what few stars I could see. They soothed me, the stars, something that the sound of rivers and the sea could never do. I sometimes took my Vespa and rode out of the city just so I could see more of them.
Imagine me, 4am in the morning, riding down the motorway on a Vespa wearing nothing but a bomber jacket and some torn grey jeans. Not exactly the greatest sight to see but I imagine, to the few cars that passed me, I was fairly amusing. I’d find a field that didn’t smell of cow s**t and park my scooter and lie down next to it, staring up at the stars with a warm beer I took out the scooters compartment, next to the engine.
I can’t remember exactly how many times I made that trip out of the city; it must’ve been over thirty times at least. I can’t remember a lot about those days now, all gone like dust in the wind despite how hard I clenched my fists to keep hold of the memories.
I distinctly remember my phone not going off for something that wasn’t related to changing my service provider, not even my family called. They knew I left sometimes early in the morning but never stopped to ask why, not even once. I suppose that’s why I left so young. It was hard leaving my sister there with my parents, not because they wouldn’t look after her, but because she’d end up just like me- more interested in characters in books than real life people. She was the only one her age that still read, all the others were too busy texting on their phones and socialising outside. The thing is she’s not exactly smart. That doesn’t matter though; she could get you to jump off the tallest building in Glasgow if she really wanted. Give her an hour alone with someone and she’d be able to manipulate them into doing anything for anyone, that’s the type of person she is. She didn’t get that from me though, at least I hope not. Never been called it at least, something I’m proud of quite frankly. Not that I haven’t been called by names other than my own; selfish, arrogant, lazy.
I used to ride around on that Vespa non-stop, it was my release. That scooter was more of a friend than my real ones were. I’d vent to it like it was a real person. To me it was in a way. It was the only true thing I could rely on; never broke down, never faltered or slowed. It was the only real constant in amidst everything that was constantly changing. The last time I rode that scooter was in the final week of summer break. I was heading out of the city to find somewhere where I could get high and forget about the world for a little bit while watching the stars. Those f*****g stars man, they were something else.
Some a*****e in his gas guzzling piece of s**t jeep didn’t like the fact I was out so late on a scooter, or maybe he just didn’t like my jacket, either way I don’t know. He was all over the damn road, couldn’t stay in a straight line if his car was on goddamn tracks. He must’ve seen me and put his foot down or something because his engine revved and it started inching closer to the back of my scooter like some damn shark hunting a dolphin. Next thing I know I’m on my a*s with blood pooling next to me and a deathlike pain in my arm, my scooter skidding along the ground in front of me. I watched it skid one hundred and fifty f*****g meters in front of me, metal and plastic splintering off of it all the way. I couldn’t think for a while after that, I just sat there on an empty stretch of country road and looked up at the sky for comfort. Eventually I got up and went over to the wreck that was formerly my scooter, the jeep was long gone leaving only the scent of petrol hanging heavy on the air and the fresh ruins of my independence. I went back to my scooter and pried it up from off the ground, it wasn’t heavy but that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I stumbled back home after I decided the pain in my arms, legs and head had dumbed down enough. Luckily I didnt break anything -or at least I didnt feel any other pain than the fresh scratches and bruises. Didn't go to the hospital despite my better judgement. I couldnt chance the staff finding out I was in a car crash and in turn getting the police invloved so I bandaged myself up with some old shirts I was going to get rid of anyway. I cleaned the scratches on my head, arms and legs with a bottle of vodka that was hidden In my dresser. I couldnt bear to part with more than a quater of the liquid diamond, I drank the rest trying to get to sleep but of course, I couldn't.
That jeep is still in my dreams; I see it when I close my eyes sometimes. Not because I almost died, but because in the deep hours of the night, when it is only me and me alone I wish it had killed me, It would have saved me countless sleepless nights in which I pulled apart the idea of ending it all myself. I guess im lucky to have survived, but lucky isn’t the term I’d use.
That night a little part of me died with that scooter, and unlike the mangled parts I can't get a shred of it back.
What little remains I was able to salvage are sitting in a box back in my parents’ house, in the same place I built it. Can’t seem to bring myself to go get the parts though, too much pain trapped in those walls to go back and those parts would only act as an amplifier to the depressing show-tune of that place. It’s in the past now, just another memory I’ll forget. Hopefully.
Then again, I haven’t forgotten anything bad that has ever happened to me; fights, broken bones, and cruel acts. None of them have left my mind- the real lessons I learned in my younger years, not those I was taught by any balding middle age man with marital issues or any other depressed forty year-old child longing for the past.

It wasn't all bad back then though, there were a few good times that spilt the bad up making it easier to swallow when it rolled back around and decided to rear its ugly head. I had this oak desk I found at a garage sale, bought it for close to nothing too. It was oversized compared to the cubicle I called home, was a real pain in the a*s to lug up those stairs too.
It was perfect, I used to write stories on it constantly.
The world didn't matter when when I was writing; there were other worlds I could dive into to forget the real one. The cold light of day always pulled me back though, no matter how far I'd go. That really pissed me off sometimes.

I used to write a lot back then. The disappointment of not being able to stay within the confines of those lines drove me away eventually. I couldn't handle coming out of the worlds I had created, it was like a bad hangover every time I was yanked out of my own personal reality.

All those stories I wrote came with me when I left; one of the few things I did take. I wanted o take the desk too but it wouldn't exactly fit in my backpack. All the notepads are sitting at the back of my closet underneath all of my other failed hobbies and broken, useless things.

I used to love watching the sunrise every morning. Seeing the sky fill with light when all there was before was dark, it was euphoric, better than any drug I had tried at the time. It gave me hope. If all there was, was dark and then suddenly there was so much light that it filled the sky to no end why couldn't the same thing happen to me one day? I was naive back then. Not now though, I have learned that some nights just won't end.

Sunsets eventually loose their beauty if you see them enough; same thing can be said for anything with true beauty. If you do have the misfortune to see something so beautiful so often it looses its allure, it becomes almost meaningless, no less than looking at that damn ceiling. If you don't believe me actually think about it; beauty isn't something to be seen every day, it comes in different forms and if that form is looked at enough it becomes just another thing to gaze upon. No longer special- a shell of what it was. No, not a shell...shells used to contain something. It becomes less than that. Hollow, fake, untrue.

I starred going downhill that night. Something inside of me that had already been strained for so long before broke. A constant feeling that something, everything, was wrong washed over me and refused to abate. I didn't understand why those feeling had surfaced, it made me physically sick every time I thought about why I felt the way i did. So I stopped wondering and just accepted it. I realise now years down the line that I took the wrong path. I took the path that led into the dark depths of the forest and not the one with clear signs telling me where to go, what to do and keeping me safe. The worst thing is I'm too far down that path to turn back, just hoping it leads out and not to a dead end where the trees will take me.