Part 2

Smoke drifted lazily from his mouth.
The television was discussing genius in a dry tone that suggested it had never been close.
He rested his cigarrette in the eye of his ashtray and considered a fresh roll.
His mind was beginning to move; or at least to convey the appearance of movement and to gravitate.

The cathode shone brightly in his darkened room.
A candle in a beer bottle guttered in the slight breeze from his half open window.
His head fell back into the warmth of his chair and he felt like he was in some fanciful storybook about French houses and ecstatic love affairs that didn't get fucked up because he'd tried to get his fingers in her knickers too soon.

The evening had worked out well.
He had expected the arrival of the Big Man but it hadn't happened.
K-Boy was wearing his hat anyway so it didn't matter much. He was getting nicely greased taking the scenic route so he wasn't too bothered about anything at this point.
He was happy in his bare lounge with his TV and stereo all accessible from his armchair, footrest and shoes off.
He wasn't bothered about company.

Two days previously, in a fit of an urge, he had moved all unnessential items out of the lounge. This included sofa, sideboard, bookcase and excluded television, stereo, armchair. He liked the space he had given himself. The bareness of the walls gave way to freedom of mind and when he sat in the middle of all this bareness he could feel his head begin to slow from the rushed day he had endured. The noise and haste melted and he could think. His head, his mind, felt quiet, at ease and at peace like a vaulted library after closing. Only then could he sort calmly through the shit of the day. The shit he had to deal with and the shit he could forget.

K-Boy's evening was developing nicely.

He thought about advertising. He thought;

1. About how much shit they talk.
2. About the ludicrous nature of slogans.
3. About ice lollies that can cool minds.
4. About bottled water that can cleanse souls.
5. About how the soul was never meant to be cleansed: it was meant to catch all the shit and keep it there.
6. About how his soul felt like a filthy net that'd been under far too long, grime slick and laden with all his own shit to torment him with.
7. He wondered if that was why it hurt so much sometimes and if that was why he let it. Because he believed it was that way.

The conclusion was typical of K-Boy. He was a naturally miserable kind of character he had to admit it. Ask Nico. Ask her about his moods. He was often disatisfied with life and life was often disatisfied with him.

He peeled himself from the chair and shuffled to the window. The pane was cracked in one corner. Single pane. Singular pain. Cold as ice. He pressed his forehead into the glass and imagined it shattering into a thousand lethal pieces at once transformed into tiny pieces of himself raining onto the street below. Glittering broken jewels.
He wondered how it might feel to explode, how it might feel in that split tenth of a second before he became nothing but vapour. It would be an unfortunate moment to realise he had made a mistake.

The window sill was damp beneath his palms. The white paint cracked. His fingertips brushed the flaking emulsion to one side. He noticed a small line of graffitti which read;

' The glory of love? '

It unsettled him so he rearranged and added letters until it said;

' The glory of Voles? '

He felt far more at ease with the abstract.

Yeah, his evening had worked out well.