This edition copyright © 2013 by Matthew Von Prince, all rights reserved.
Published in the United States of America
Cover art copyright © 2013 Matthew Von Prince
Characters, locations and events depicted herein are fictitious. No association with any real person, location or event is intended or should be inferred.
I would like to thank Lynn Cross for taking the rough page of raw and disjointed thoughts I wrote and turning it in to something of a story. I would also like to thank my friends and family for putting up with my wild dreams and aspirations.
You can find more of my writing, art, and personal life at MatthewVonPrince.Blogspot.com
Dedicated to the forgotten and their angels.
MVP
A Heroin Laced Love Story
Could I ever find happiness? What would be the point of such a search? Life seems to be nothing more than a series of meaningless events of which even the memories will disappear as I rot in the grave. Why should I not race to the finish?
I am lying on a mattress placed directly upon the floor of the small basement I am renting. The mattress is my only furniture except for a couple of beat-up kitchen stools. Hell, the floor isn’t even finished.
The Bic lighter's flame dances below the blackened spoon. Its glow flickers across my glazed eyes but does not reach into the darkened corners of my cave. The smell of steaming heroin, reminiscent of burnt wax, wafts through the air and brings a twisted sort of pleasure to my nostrils.
Sprawled at my side is the half-naked body of a young girl, the bruises on the veins of her arms nearly matching my own. Her pale and sweaty skin has a strange luminosity. Does it merely reflect the lighter or is is something I cant even name? I call her mine, but who am I to call her such? I'm the guy with the dope, the guy with her next fix. She says she cares, but does she? Am I her true love or is heroin the Romeo to the Juliet of her heart? God only knows, if in fact such a being exists.
And why does that water keep dripping? I've asked the man upstairs to fix it, but he still hasn’t. He's never fixed a damn thing in this place. I pour more of the pale brown powder onto the spoon, more than ever before. Who gives a flying fuck anyway?
“N-not so much darling,” the girl stutters as a needle falls from her own drug-weakened fingers, bounces lightly upon the bare concrete floor, and vanishes into the uncovered drain beside the bed.
“Don't tell me what to do, bitch,” I mumble as I draw the murky brown liquid into the syringe. “Fucking hypocrite.”
“You could kill yourself.”
Is she pleading with me? I look into her eyes but cannot find any light there. But then I no longer seem to find light in anything. The entire world has warped into nothing more than dope, needles, and belts. One long maze through which I chase my next hit like a starving rat in some sick scientist's perverted experiment.
“Would it matter?” My question reverberates through the history of our species.
I grab the castoff brazier lying near her side and wrap it around my arm. I pick my least bruised vein. You see, it's not like in the movies where the cliché dope fiend always hits on the same spot. I usually try to mix it up—that way I don’t end up in a clinic somewhere with my arm rotting off. With the skill of too much practice, I sink the dull needle and draw the plunger back, watching my blood mix with the heroin-laced water.
She rolls over and rises, seemingly in slow motion. She straddles my outstretched legs and leans close into me, close enough for me to look into her dilated pupils set in a sea of green, close enough for her eyelashes to bat mine, close enough for me to hear her whisper, “Not just yet.” Her warm breath flows across my clammy face and her hand grasps the needle, pulling it gently from my arm. “Stay with me a bit.” The touch of her bare breasts on my naked chest fills my heart with peace. Our lips meet gently, again and again, in that twelfth hour I find something in my soul. Hopelessness consumes our lives, yet in that moment I seem to find something.
Not every angel has a halo, not every angel will go to heaven when they die, but that girl saved my life.
