Half

He lay crumpled in the corner of the room — viscous rouge seeping into the shagpile. Eyes growing dim, he caught a fever-like glimpse of his lower body nestled against the glass coffee table directly opposite. He’d often dreamed of being in two places at once. As his eyelids fell like matinee curtains, a fleeting thought emerged: this was as close as he’d ever get.

The klip-klopping of stiletto heels dragged him unwillingly from his daydream — or nightmare, he could rarely tell the difference these days.

He fished for his pillbox in the inside left pocket of his Primark trench coat, wrestled with the lid, and eventually was able to tease two small capsules that had firmly acquainted themselves with the side of the box.

For long enough now, he’d understood that the chalk white discs of psychiatrist-recommended antipsychotics did fuck all for his outbursts. But if he mixed them with a couple of diazepam and a half bottle of Tesco’s finest value whiskey, the neural lightshow certainly livened up the evening.

“For fuck’s sake,” he groaned, “the bastarding offies is shut.”