The Dead Mans Journal: Chapter 2

My heavy, pale eyelids open. Exposing my once, bright emerald eyes, which now lay dull and uninspired. My scraggy beard is damp with someone’s vomit. My fingers reach to rub my eyes whilst they twitch like the junky I am.

I’m greeted by the yellow-stained walls and the note she left just before she did. I won’t read it, I refuse. When I read that A5 piece of shattered dreams, hidden amongst the bottles of stolen pills, it confirms. It’s over.

3 months ago I had everything I needed, her.

‘What happened’

‘Everything.’

I don’t recognise that scar above my eyebrow, must be new, it’s still bleeding. Unimportant, I’ve got business to attend to. I get dressed and slick my hair back using its natural oils to hold it in place.

London’s a weird place, either you’re rich as can be or you’re barely scraping by. Somehow, I’m in between, probably the three years of corporate shit and barely leaving the house, allowed me to save enough money to buy a small plot of land off the coast of Fiji.

I won’t do that, I’ll live out my days drinking enough to drown a small family of whales. That’s more “me”. Well, the new “me”.

I head through the beauteous bleak & grey East End of London. I’m heading for a small shop, specialising in computer repairs. I met the owner in a different life. He still owes me a favour.

The red sign on the door says closed; that surely doesn’t apply to me? I barge the door open with the might of a man who has nothing to lose.

‘What the Fu-…’

‘How’s business?’

I couldn’t give any less of a shit.

‘Cut the crap. Why’re you here. What the fucks happened to your face?’

His middle-aged Scottish accent seems strangely panicked. Good.

Fear’s always the greatest motivator.

‘You remember that favour you owe. I’m calling it in.’

‘This couldn’t wait? You really are a crazy bastard’

‘This man’

I’m holding a scrap of paper with a barely legible name on it, in front of the old man's eyes.

‘Find him for me.’