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Rexus coughed up blood, spitting and wheezing. His filthy hands clasped a bone pipe. Rain hammering down, soaking his furs, bloodshot eyes and hair hanging down his back in matted tangles. Leaning against an old world tower, a gathering place for vagrants and those lost to the sweet root. Chemists in the dogscape had learnt to utilise certain plant matter, dogleaves and the like, extracting and cooking into intoxicating blends. Rexus had been hooked on the sweet root for five decades. He looked weary beyond his sixty years on the scape. He still reminisced about the early days. His first love had danced to the music on the pipes, in those sordid quarters of what was once a great city. He smoked, and felt such bliss, he sought that bliss as hungrily as others pursued meaning in that barren wasteland. The tribes got by with stories of creation and spiritual redemption. Rexus concerned himself with the here and now. He simply wanted to feel good. He had a lot to forget, a lot to escape. He had killed to feel good. He had strangled an old friend to death for the last scraps of his little brownish white crystals, in his beloved cordpull retriever pouch. The sweet root did that to people. Rexus shuddered all over, his heart raced and his stomach twisted with fear. He felt the eyes of the dogscape watching him. The howls and barks, incessant, deafening. The paranoia was unbearable. He rocked back and forth, smashing the back of his head against the furred wall behind him. Sobbing maniacally. The pain was unbearable. 'Bring us the offering. We'll bring you the sweet root.' The tribal masters made good use of these desperate junkies. They'd do any work. However dirty. The children of rival tribes bundled into hidesacks, delivered up for some gruesome ceremony. The sweet root made you forget. Those ghastly industrial structures, breathing with ungodly life. Guarded closely, against all those who would ransack them for the sweet root they produce. Rexus, in some far distant and still conscious part of his mind, noted that his vision was blurry. In and out of focus. He prepared to smoke, struggling to create a flame with a small rock and match. Within moments of inhalation the agony of moments ago subsided. The effects still had an hour or so to wear off. Until then physical discomfort, fear, any kind of distress was entirely suppressed. The rain beat down all the same, his heart raced and lungs ached, but Rexus was not aware of it. In that little alcove in a narrow alley, Rexus was not aware he was waiting to die, that death was rapidly impending. A fellow vagrant collapsed beside him in his final moments. Perhaps sensing an opportunity to empty his pockets, acquire some free root. 'Bad shape man, you're in bad shape.' Rexus urinated, and made some noises in response to this nameless wanderers observation. 'It's alright. We all getting by. Doing what we gotta go. These are hard times. Dark days. You looking like you on the way out, huh?' Wanderer pushed Rexus, looking for a response. A sharp intake of breath, coughing, raw and bloody. He'd be dead soon, play it safe... Wanderer picked up the pipe Rexus had dropped to the floor. His most prized possession. Ornate. Still a little unburnt root in there. He produced a small piece of flint from his pocket and expertly lit a flame with his last match, matches were hard to come by. Addicts would do dirty work for matches. 'Goddamn, you oughta have finished up before you died.' The wanderer, bearded, dead eyed, oblivious to the howls of the dogscape. As he smoked the last of Rexus' bowl, Rexus began to fade in and out of consciousness. His first love, they'd swim together, listen to the broadcasts. When she was taken, when she disappeared, Rexus needed a new love. Just to get by while he looked for her. Her face returned to him, vivid as that last day they had slept together in their tent beside the ocean. The entire day. The best day of his life. Then came flashes and bangs, strange noises, and she was gone. Alisa, somehow, in these final moments she felt closer than ever. |