shiva.

[killjoyed]

the sewer rat was slowly regaining her mind back with the absence of poison streaming gleefully through her veins, the edges of brown eyes flushed of familiar bloodshot.

"i hate it," she would whisper to herself in the dark of her room, blinds tweaked shut to shy away the city's lamplights. somewhere, her fingers fumbled with a lighter and a glass dick, sucking herself away in a cloud of beautiful white smoke that would crystallize lungs if it was held in for too long.

sometime afterward she would lay for hours, chainsmoking and naked on her back with a halo of firestruck hair floating around her head, the fingers on one hand drumming the concave of her stomach.

she had her eyes closed but she wouldn't sleep, not for days, not for years.

this was a time for a new path of destruction. she knew it, and she was smiling.

[killjoyed]

shiva had forgotten how wonderful sleep was.

she went from midnight to midnight in a complete 24-hour stretch, only waking up once to stumble bleary-eyed to the bathroom for a two-minute long piss, groaning out her contentment while shep lay laughing on the couch, flipping through channels on the television.

in her dreams she could rollerskate better, and so could renton, except he was slipping across a glasspane of ice, cracks chasing his heels as he pumped on, the wheels turning hot as sunbeam and melting the surface below him.

in her dreams, shiva couldn't move, just watch herself and others with no control. when she woke up, her jaw hurt a lot more than the day before, stiff and creaking as she struggled to speak to the ugly black and grey cat that lay purring at her side.

"whaasit with you?" she slurred. "yah dun even like me.."

[killjoyed]

the gutter princess sank into the pavement of the city, each groggy step taking her closer to the whispering arms of metal and steel, glass and granite that protected and saved. through the mania of her bleary bloodshot eyes she could see the shapes of people, half-translucent and riddled with the stinking disease of human nature, chattering their loose lips like cackling hens. she sneered as some of them poked their ballooning heads into her face, delivering lines with horrendously wide grins.

"are you sober?"

"when are you sending money to your mother?"

"when do you think shep is going to try and kill himself next?"

"have you gone to the dentist lately?"

"why would you trust a junkie?"

and she sucked her cigarette and slimed her tongue across cavity teeth, clutching her elbows to her side as a feverish sweat broke out onto her face, turning sideways into the swallow of an alleyway and it's molding brick labyrinth, reams of firespark floating after her.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ October 10, 2006 03:25 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

[killjoyed]

she had been re-birthed in the solitary hold of the city streets, weaned from suicidal cousins and shoe-stealing ferrets that shit in every waking corner of that godawful apartment. slinking from dumpster to dumpster had given her enough time to think about renton and the absence of his fingers at her hips, and what color of skin they were sliming over in the heat of a neon-slaughtered hellhole surrounded by miles of yawning desert.

"it'd be stupid of me to think otherwise, i ain't dumb, i know what i got m'self into," she murmured over a cigarette as she spoke to the piss-stained bottom of a lamppost, sprawled backdown on the sidewalk with her feet in the gutter, lids swamped down over brown eyes, sagging horrifically. "who cares, who cares if he does huh? s'like alright, i know i'll give 'em my share of fuckups. yah know it's not even that, not even that that bothers me.. it's.. what bothers me is.. it's.."

the destroyer opened her mouth for a laugh, spilling from behind methragged tonsils, spitting out bits of glass and heated chemical. "..that i'm even thinkin' 'bout 'em in the fuckin' first place!"

above her, the bulb flickered in it's glasscracked home, raining down a jaundiced yellow onto the hollows of her grinning cheeks as a sewerslick arm stretched upwards and out, a topple of ash falling to her neck.

"ohyah, i knew yah'd understand.."

[killjoyed]

her face felt like it was going to fall off, the weight of imaginary hands at the back of her neck strong, like they wanted to decapitate, skeleton thumbs coming to press into her eyes, boring a deep black void into her head, medusa's snakes twisting themselves around her neck in a furious spitting of tongue and scale.

oh god, she could hear herself from the clouds. if this isn't a dream then the snake is out.

[killjoyed]

"well okay," shep said as he swallowed smoke, eyes tearing at the corners. "is he better than andy?"

"better." shiva snorted, snapping the joint from her cousin with a roll of desertburned eyes. "andy was a fuckin' freak. what kinda guy sets out a sex outfit for his girlfriend and then watches the discovery channel for half a fuckin' hour?"

"one with a sense of humour!" shep howled his laughter through plumes of smoke.

"you dumbass, i'm glad i'm movin' out." but the halfbreed sliced a filthy grin his way, toothy and all-knowing, sucking ashy remains into the double barrel of her lungs.

"yah? know what. me too."

[killjoyed]

in the safety of a flickering neon barlight shiva found herself six feet under her limit, gutterstained fingers wrapped around the filter of a cigarette, her sour breath inches away from a payphone receiver.

"hey raja." her heart beat wildly for the moment after a 'alo?' on the other end, hoping he didn't hear her suck in a pained breath. "it's you, right?"

"yeah, who is this?" his accent had smoothed over more to make him sound like an intellectual professor, but the street trash still bet his dark eyebrows were diving to his forehead as he racked his brain for recognition to this gravelling, pathetic girl's voice on the other end of the world.

"it's shiva, raj," she croaked out, sucking nervous smoke from the end of her cigarette.

"shiva! shiva!" he sang, nearly screaming, the redhaired goddess shying away from the phone, a weak smile ticking to her face.

"raj! raj!" her mouth flapped open and closed to yap his name like she had done it for a mindless eternity, rambling on. "i mean god how the fuck're yah, boy?"

"oh, good! just.. just lots of changes is all."

"how's --" def leppard came flying from the swinging door of the bar, a couple smothering each other with laughter, grabbing hands as they stumbled along into an alleyway, the shadows swallowing their echoes and ebbing footsteps, reminding her of renton, her voice quivering for a moment. "..sorry, i'm somewhere.. loud.. i mean, how's your mom, your dad?" the doses that shep had given her were beginning to wane, so she continued to talk to avoid her mind running itself in lunatic circles. "i'm really sorry i haven't been in touch for so long, but s'like i've been busy and all, yah know how it is."

"shiva, my mom's dead. she's been dead for a year now. it happened before you were sent away."

the silence on the phone was deafening, a brickton of shit weighing down the electric airwave space between thousands of miles. "raja, m'sorry, really i am. yah know that before i was sent for good i was.. immobile, locked up, couldn't even talk to yah and i wanted to so badly, oh fuck raj, i missed yah so much." she cowered in the dripping space of the city, keeping close to the wall of the bar, watching the streets with browneyed suspicions.

"yeah alright, you still miss me?"

shiva took a worried huff from her pall mall, exhaling out a corner of her mouth. "of course i still do, why d'yah think i'm callin' yah?"

"maybe to call it off, i don't know." raja's voice was quiet, thin-lipped, a calm honesty that still made shiva's heart thump a little harder.

"raj, yah know i'm not the one to make and break that decision."

"you know it was today, right? today was the day we were supposed to be married."

"yeah, according to m'mother!" shiva shrieked suddenly, a mad drag from her cigarette as both eyebrows cut clean to an angry V, a stomp of a foot that sent rattling vibrations through to the hollows of her bones. "sorry, sorry, yah know s'got nuthin' to do with yah, just bitter about how i can just be pawned off."

"well shivash, you know that we were lucky. you could've gotten paired with dipen, or i with amit, that snooty uptight bitch." he had a lilt of humor to his voice, trying to cheer her up. "this is one of the more copasetic arranged marraiges made, you've got to admit."

"of course." shiva leaned the side of her head against the metal cage of the phone, watching as scattered drops of rain suicide jumped to their sidewalk deaths. "if i was gonna be forced into marrying anyone, yah'd be my first choice, raj."

"you too shiva, you too." there was a long pause, she could hear him breathing. "hey now, i've got to go to the store and get some medicines for my father. you call me more often, okay? we need to catch up more. i miss you."

"i will, i promise." but through her words she bit back a sting of tears, knowing that she wouldn't hear his voice again for weeks, maybe months, if she persisted the way that she did. "take care, say hello to everyone, tell 'em i haven't forgotten, okay?"

"i'll do that. have a nice afternoon, or whatever it is there. and take care of yourself, okay? take care of yourself.. g'bye."

"..bye." she spoke to a dial tone, placing the cradle back on the hook while she gnawed at her lower lip, staring at the bouncing door of the bar, honing in on the noise inside. shiva sighed and flicked her cigarette away, shoving both hands in her pockets as ragged-shoe feet crossed themselves and carried her off in half-stumbling fashion, heading down the boulevard.

she patted her pockets for cigarettes, and found nothing but an empty pack. strangely, she wasn't disappointed to have spent her last few dollars on the phone call -- it was the fear of how long the satisfaction of it would keep her sane that frightened her.

[killjoyed]

the inching days spanned into weeks, wings that stretched wide with tipping feathers, flapping through her dreams in a constant rewind to forgot the future.

the sway of the ocean in front of her, sun sending sparks of light dancing across each salt-heavy flush of water, the pull of seaweed around her ankles as it beckoned her to an underwater life of seahorses and orange starfish, merpeople with lavarock staffs and barnacle-tough mouths, chattering their faiths of an ancient oceanic language. shiva didn't struggle, just put her arms up and allowed herself to be dragged cooing from her mouth before it was flooded by water, the grip of her fingertips light against the sand as her eyelids slid shut.

to find herself standing sopping wet in a liquor store, the faint buzz from a black and white television behind the counter the loudest sound of all, the cashier's eyes intent on the game, spitting cuban from thick flapping lips. words came from the far right, distant and wailing like the wind had brought them, high pitched and frantic.

"go go go!"

she knew who it was without needing to look, and swept a chickenbone arm to the side to gobble up bottles of dimestore brand vodka, one slipping and bursting open on the floor by her feet, the surviving two hugged to her chest, snugged by a pair of barely there tits. her feet found their achilles heels faster than they ever had before, true spitfire halfbreed singing a familiar song while red streamers licked the doorjamb as she sprang out onto the sidewalk.

"renton! haaaaay wait up!"

he ducked into an alleyway and she soon followed suit, shoelaces lapping at her feet like a pack of hungry wolves, drunk with broken-bottle alcohol. "oh man, what was that, what the fuck just happened right there?" she heaved heavy for a moment, staring in the corner of an alleyway where she was sure she saw the sickled shadow of someone bent over someone else, pulling hair and ripping with claws, her dreamscape gone sour with just a snap of the sprinting ankle.

"wot? wot d'yah mean?" renton stared at her with black eyes, his hair tangled and greaseslick, longer than it had been before with it's splitends reaching his sputtering breath ribcage.

"the ocean! there were seagulls and sand, a kite.." she frowned, the city behind her staggering it's lights in succession until they were completely off, complimenting the wash of clouds across an already waning sun, engulfing the sky with a sick hurricane green-grey, like god himself was about to be sick. "nevermind." her voice didn't feel like it belonged to her, tendons by the jaw tight and coiled like a springing rattlesnake, hissing from the depths of her throat. she juggled the bottles in her arms as she freed a hand and shoved it into a pocket, twisting up a cigarette to stick it between her lips, lifting her eyes to renton as she patted herself down for a lighter.

he was a void as black as the alleyways he sulked through, no more swamping green like the hang of moss in a floridian bayou, just huge impossible unnerving pupils, spanning over the whites. "here." and he struck a match and handed it across to her, touching the fire to the end of the cigarette in her mouth before his fingers cramped, his lips twisting their flatline away in pain, the match backspinning beautifully to shiva's feet, alighting her on fire, blowing upwards to burn her alive.

the sun tore back her eyelids as she awoke to a shuddering morning, sick with a quick fall chill resonating through each rattling bone. the sewer rat moved in jerks and mindless flails of limb, clawing ragged fingernails to an overwhelming sky of dingy blue and stretching monochrome cloud. the power plant choked steady streams of noxious black smoke from each ancient stack, crumbling at the top and screaming repair, rebuild, anything but to keep working.

shiva could relate, still somewhat disoriented as her palms drove down to the top of the rusted-out traincar, a caboose sleeping stagnantly in a graveyard of it's brothers and sisters. she pushed herself up, stretching legs, arm, and spine, a yawn owning the stretch of her lips before she smothered it with a morning joint, pre-rolled by her gracious cousin.

but she would need something stronger to wash that last one from her memory.

[killjoyed]

sometimes the best listeners to talk to were the badly insulated walls of her apartment, trying their best to protect from the howling winds of the coming winter, promising warmth if the landlord followed up with his part of the deal.

shiva sat crosslegged on the couch with the television volume on low, not paying attention to it as she kept both eyes transfixed in her lap and the box caught by the wedge of jeaned legs. "sure he loves me, uh huh, i love 'em, right? but do i have t'trust him, naah."

she shook her head, overgrown bangs sweeping sideways across half of her face, dipping her head at a more severe angle, still able to look down. thumb and forefinger held the small bag open at either end of the ziploc path, using her other hand to dip a straw into it, cut to make a miniature spoon at one end, scooping up a bowlsized heap of shards that looked like elongated seasalt, shaves of rock candy you got from wild west giftstores. "i trust 'em more than he thinks, though, it's alright, he doesn't have to believe me if he doesn't wanna."

grimy fingertips caught the glass curves of the pipe with a tenderness she refused to recognize, holding it up while the other hand smoothed through the movements of carefully dropping the shit from straw to bowl through a hole in the top, eyes squinting carefully as she made sure it was all down, all in one even pile. "shep's on his way out, too. fuckin' christ."

the gutter princess zipped the baggie up and dropped it into the box, closing it shut before putting it to the coffee table, leaning back in the corner of the cushions with pipe and lighter. she fired it up and held the flame underneath the bowl, not close enough to burn but hot enough to melt the substance inside, twisting the pipe slightly so it slid like a rush of water across a frozen lake, leaving bits of itself as a preliminary coating before she took the flame away, watching it cool into one even strip of clear emotion-killing devil's stew. "after this one, i swear, i'm getting sober again."

before the words were barely out of her mouth, before her mind had time to decide whether or not it was a good idea, the end of the pipe was at her lips and fingers were rolling it fast back and forth, flame held underneath while she sucked slow then fast, eyes hypnotized by the curling white clouds spinning from the bowl to her body, her brain screaming MORE MORE MORE before she pushed the sweet chemical exhaust from the tearing hollows of her mouth.

while she waited for it to cool to take another, her heart pounded in frantic anticipation, her body still crying for the whole-body tingle of the first few times, urging her to chase after something she could never have again.

she refused to let go,
let go of anything.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ November 27, 2006 03:55 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

[killjoyed]

after the drink she came cold and restless, counting her failures on dirt-laden fingernails and twisting them deep into cherry-coated strands of quickly fading color.

"renny.." she whispered loud to herself, to this lamppost and to the streets. "where've you been, where'm i."

snow fell in sickled memories of reflecting limelight, this thought and these times, digging deep into a cranium that welcomed nothing but fear and contempt, an apathy that wouldn't lay to rest and sleep in it's own bed.

she found herself at windows that whined against the wind and wished for cracks, something to repair against the whirling junkielove that delved inside -- bulletholes ripping across the front door and vinyl siding.

in her finest moment shiva found herself nails deep in the side, methaddled brain fighting for pure consciousness as both bodies (inside and out, not to be confused with ethereal or terrestrial matters) rode themselves up to a window she had only seen once out of, a grimy fist stretching desertborne skin taut as it rapped keen against a cold sheen of wintered glass.

"renton, renton."

and although she knew that he would chide her and bite for the horrors of what juels could bestow onto both of them, the street princess crowed loud to him, wailing out her utter demise and the implications that came with it.

"..open up!"