AFTERMATH: In The Midst Of Debt

Thanks for dropping by.  The first 22 episodes of this blog, from January to May 2013, are the text of the book, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', by me, which you can get on amazon, if you're that way inclined.  From thereon in, it is the live and living thoughts of me, post-crack, pre-apocalypse, and so forth, for example...

IN THE MIDST OF DEBT

There's no better feeling than dragging your keyboard, cumbersome as a child, into your local branch of Cash Converters.  Like an elephant's graveyard behind reinforced glass, hi-fis, cameras, phones, televisions, and other state-of-the-art artefacts, try to explain the patchwork of their route there.  'I was brought in by Tiger,' explains a forlorn-looking camera with a faulty flash that no one knows about.  'I'd been a bona fide birthday present, until Tiger was having a smoke-up with Angel, and removed me on exiting discreetly at dawn.  He tried to palm me off on the Green, but no one had the cash, or trusted him - then, when this place opened, he brought me in without a falter - and here I am, gleaming dully next to the phone with a slightly cracked screen, brought in by Bernadette, found on a table outside Nero.'  A mute camcorder resents the camera's candidness, scowls on through tinted filter.

And here am I, with another animal for this menagerie of desperation, lopsided in my clutches at the thick-glass counter, my £800 keyboard, upon which numerous songs have been written, albeit sporadically, over the past few years.

But now, the coal-eyed raven, encased for his own security, is waiting to take.  He negotiates a figure, I accept, on buyback, naturally.  He comes round, opens a side-door, and takes it in.  I pretend to be glad of his trade.  In goes the keyboard, and then, when he's reappeared at his window, he shoves under the agreed amount.  By now, my head is ten minutes in the future, and I'm round the corner, making the call.

And that is all I have to say today.