Wrote this four years ago

A young boy had a good night. He got drunk, got high, got laid. It was the first time he’d done any of these. He had a good morning: he was hung over so he smoked a pack of newports (found on his brother’s desk) while reading the newspaper (found on his father’s) front to back. This was a new experience. He felt dirty. He took off his dirty clothes and ran himself a bath. The water was grey. He lay in the water and waited to be clean.

The dirty boy walked under the black sky, through the white rain to school. Sitting behind his wooden desk, with its metal legs, on his plastic chair. When asked what was wrong he told his teacher I’m a dirty boy.

As he walked home in his muddy shoes he cycled through what he’d learnt that day. He kept his eyes on the water in the gutter the whole way home while he stepped on every crack. Upon his arrival he found the front door locked and the pocket he kept his key in empty. He stepped around to the other side and walked in the open back door. Soon enough his clothes were on the floor and he was in the grey water.

Nights later he watched spiders abseil the walls from his place in the water. He posed to the shadowed mirror. Exposed his yellowing teeth. Poked his pinkish tongue, licked his smudged skin. Closed his grey eyes. Dilated his pupils.

In class he scratched his arms and pits. Licked his lips with his liquidless tongue. He excused himself to the bathroom, but it only held toilets and taps. He ran up and down flushing and running but the water was withheld, he could only wet his hands and feet. At lunch he left.

The next day he missed school for the first time, preferred to lay in the grey. The day after, he woke up in an empty bath and didn’t know what to do. He turned the taps back and forth to no effect, no drip. He knew he was unclean. Looked down at his hands, grey; his feet, grey. He looked at the mirror with crossed fingers and saw his face. Grey.