Three nights later, she sat in the same position. Bloody hell, this insomnia was great, if only slightly annoying. Anyone who was remotely interesting enough to talk to on MSN was most likely asleep… whether it be alone or with someone else. The only person to talk to was her depressing father. She had tried to take up writing, maybe memoirs or fantasy, only to have it turn into a dismal clash of words mixed together into coherent sentences that had no purpose.
She reviewed the information she had gained from her details software every night. There was little to find out. Her father was generally quite careful. Except when it came to dealing with her.
Each night, after looking at the information and attempting to write more of a fantasy story that had little purpose except to entertain her momentarily, she would consider delving into her father's history. Was there anything else of interest? Had he, too, broken the law frequently in an attempt to alleviate the boredom that would grasp her without a moment's notice. Her old habit of doodling was going nowhere fast.
She looked at her mobile. Should she text him?
Yes. She would, tonight she would. If he didn't answer, she would call. If he still didn't answer, she would go to Baker Street. It was only a few streets down from her house.
Hello?
A simple text, one requesting an answer. She smirked, pressing the send button. One way or another, she would encounter her father. What would he be like? Would he slam the door in her face in a hasty attempt to return to sleep or whatever it was he did? Would he invite her inside, only to be a sulky child trapped within a man's body, as he seemed within the texts he had returned to hers?
An hour later, boredom struck at her. She needed to do something. Anything. What could she do? She could walk down the street to Dandy's. Dandy was the name of the local dealer around her street. He was normally out around this time, anyway. She knew this because she had been tempted before, and she had given in. Too many times to admit safely to her adoptive parents. She had promised them that she would never do drugs, but she needed something again. Anything to alleviate the boredom.
She wouldn't call. Not yet. Maybe her father was silently deliberating over whether or not to text back. She should go for a walk. It would give her something to do, and the cool night air would probably help her in some way. Possibly.
Once outside, she realised that there was so little to do. What could she do in the quiet lull of midnight? Should she seek out Dandy? She was still bored.
Within an hour, she was back in her house, in the same position as she had been before. Even if she did have a dopey look on her face, thanks to the cannabis she had discreetly smoked outside her house. The light had been a small pinprick of orange against the dark night. There was no moon and whatever stars there were had been blotted out by the pollution emitted by the factory nearby.
This was fun. The shapes that swirled around her were pretty, ethereal in their incandescent reality. She wanted to reach out and grab them, but they looked so fragile. She didn't want to destroy them with her clumsy fingers. She knew she should be doing something… but she didn't know what it was. She didn't mind. The shapes were far more interesting than anything else. She was content to just watch them dance to a silent song, one with a slow and sorrowful beat, it seemed.
Clarity slowly seeped back two hours later as the high faded. She wanted to grasp it back… but could she do it safely? Probably not. She now remembered what she had intended to do… but it was too close to dawn, too late for her to call now. She would call the next night if she hadn't received a text by then.
The day crawled by. She wanted her high back and was concocting ways to regain it. Ways that were probably unsafe and almost certainly lethal. She was too far gone, she realised. She wanted a new fix. She needed a new fix, the same way she needed a new intake of oxygen moments after she had exhaled. Her body, her mind, her soul, demanded the solace that she gained from each fix. She tried her pseudo-meditation, only to be transfixed by the haunting images of the beautiful shapes. They weren't quite right, though. They didn't captivate her. She wanted them to captivate her. But they wouldn't. She sighed. She needed release. Badly.