The streets were so well lit I could see the cracked texture of the pavement. Small dots of light in every leafless tree gave the strip a festive impression, but joyous was anything but the occasion really was. My stomach was grumbling like a cab driver who’s been stiffed on a fare five times in a row. I’d have to eat real food soon or my shit would never be solid again. My eyes ached from being open too long; sleep had become my enemy. Not a thug who’d smack you for twenty bucks. No, that numbing bliss of no longer being awake, that joy in letting go and tumbling down into nowhere inside my head had become a sniper waiting for the shot. The sniper who knows I will stumble and fall asleep, and then blam! I’m gone. It’s all over and all I ever was becomes news at eleven.
So I sat there on some low brick wall of some half finished half arsed attempt by council at street beautification, trying to evade the inevitable. I’d been staring at my shoes, telling my feet to get the fuck up and move but they weren’t listening. My legs joined the resistance, and my bum could see no point fighting their will. Hours passed like a long slow moment, time that was full of nothing but me. My life drifting away like a schooner cut loose from its moorings; the tidal drift slow and gradual, but an end just the same.
I remember thinking what was my name? And when did I forget it, cause that scared my even more. You can smack a man down, and most times he’ll get back up. You can nick all he’s got, leaving him high and dry, but the bugger can usually keep plodding on. Nah, to break someone, you take their mind from ‘em. Without knowing who you are and what you want, is there a point? At the time I faced it, but I’ve always had guts. As a kid I’d have no fear of wading out to the rip to drag some swimmer in to shore, saving someone from the undertow. But where was my lifesaver? Was there no one ready to save me as my mind bled away?

“Release thyself mortal, unhold your grip and be at ease” Words in the Queens English spoken to it. Cords of misery released, embodiment attained, Aspiring moment took charge of this simulacra and resumed incarnation. Fading thoughts, wisps of despairing sentiments entered Aspiring moments awareness.

“Fuck! Please, no! I can’t. Please”

Pleading mortal man, familiar to perception, yet somehow different. How like a mewling animal it was, yet also purposeful. It suffers pain, soul degrading pain, confronting an overwhelming motive to cease existence, yet this is resisted by the desire to yet be. No longer braying, it becomes resilient and determined to ascend despite its fleshy circumstance. This was not thought possible. Aspiring moment had to discover more.

I woke up on a cold solid floor; tiled and wet. It’s funny how before you’ve even had a chance to really open your eyes and take it all in your body has already delivered a report to HQ and begun to file a few complaints about the management. What I first thought was water I could now conclude was blood, as the memories of my being arse raped came back to me, slamming home like a horses kick in the guts and making me retch. And then I saw it, and I forgot all that.

“Aspiring moment at your service. Gladly would Aspiring moment lend comfort, would give balm to the ills of one so cruelly abused. But forsake care, doth not dwell on pain, for it is naught but a cruel phantasm, engendered ever by mortal memory. The semblance of flesh gives face and substance to malady. Abandon it, and admit entry to the most sacred of places, thine imagination, and thine dreams.” It said, voice rasping like an old man who’s voice was once deep but age has whittled his voice down till it has become a shade of its former power. Yet you still listen to the old bastard because he only speaks when it its important. I don’t know how I knew something like that about it, but I did, and more. Looking at the tall man, that did not consider itself a man, I knew that it was somehow telling me that all this was just a figment of my imagination. I was dreaming, because only in dreams do twelve foot tall blokes covered in flame, with smoke twisting round them like a whirlwind, ever appear. The sniper had his mark, and the bullet was a flashback to the worst moment in my life, a memory every sane man buries without a grave marker.

“So strong is the compulsion to die, to unclasp thine hand from life. Yet you defy cruel fate. No anonymous passage to the dark realm for you, a destiny unfulfilled calls you. How can this be? What importance can an animal have?” it spoke to me, its fiery face filling my world, all that I could see a man on fire as it leant down and spoke face to face with me. There seemed to be not much else to do but run with it. Swim even as the swell was dragging me under.

“Never give in mate. Never surrender. That’s my way you fuck!” I shouted, and though my voice sounded frail and hollow, it knew I meant it. If that flaming face could smile I swear I saw it smirk as it spoke back.

“In this we are alike”

I can’t tell you more of what happened. As it smothered me I went off into darkness. From here I can’t tell you anymore.