Save Me

prologue

HER

"Stay away from me!" She screamed. 

Every eye in the diner instantly turned to the scene playing out before them, the drama that followed every person into this diner ended up playing out, publicly, entertainment for everyone else till it came there time to act.

The man on the other side of the table leapt to his feet, knocking the coffee cups onto the floor. Shards of ceramic mug flew in every direction, the remaining dregs of their coffee flying through the air with it.

"You bitch. How dare you raise your stinking voice to me. Who do you think you are? Huh? A grown up woman who can do what she likes? I dare you. I fucking dare you. Go on. Get out of here and try to start your own life without me, with no sorry money to pave your way."

The girl cowered in her seat, suddenly scared of every move she made, suddenly aware what she was doing and the situation she had caused.

"I-I'm sorry Mike, you know how I get when I'm off it, I need some more that's all, just a little more to get me through the month."

The rest of the diner turned away in disgust, another drug addict short on her daily dose making a scene. It was a frequent event at 3am on a Tuesday. Especially in this place, a hovel hidden in the back streets of Melbourne's West, the place where the scum of the earth go to make their last plea for justice.

Who was I  kidding? I spent every Tuesday here, and every Sunday, watching every show that played out around the diner in bemusement.

Everyone has problems, there's no doubt, but everyone here likes the feeling of sharing them and seeing the shock on someone else's face when they tell them.

It makes them feel like maybe their problem is really as bad as they thought, maybe they really do have a right to be narcissistic about it. Because after all, their problem is always worse than anyone else's.

Not mine.

I've been coming here for three years, I've heard the stories from all the other patrons, I've heard of broken marriages and broken hearts, I've heard about rape and slavery and branding, I've heard about forbidden love and drug addictions.

But the story I hear the most is the one that intertwines directly with mine, the story of self hate, and self harm.

Every sorry person in this place thinks their story is worse than the last person, but not me. I know my story, I'm the only person who does, and deep down I know it's not nearly as bad as some of the fucked up stuff I've heard in hear. But it's not any less real.

So when couples leap up and throw half filled coffee cups at the floor and their screams fill the room, I watch. I write down what they say and I remember how it looked on that day.

Tonight is no different. In my little black book I have three new stories. One of a woman who lost all three of her sons to the war, and who now wanders the streets, waiting for them to come home.

Another of a man, with a missing arm, who told me he lost it fighting off a pack of angry dogs as they tried to attack his little girl. I wrote about how his voice got quiet when he said that even loosing his arm couldn't stop them ripping her apart too.

And finally, I wrote about the man and the drug addicted girl, with her pasty cheeks and frightened eyes, and how she shook every time the lights flickered above her head.

My watery brown sludge, known apparently as coffee, swishes around in my cup as I watched the entertainment of the night break apart and start to head home, to their crappy houses and pointless jobs, no doubt as well to their husbands and wives who thought they were at another job interview or still trying to make things better.