A Bird in Flight | ✔︎

Chapter six: Reality is my worst nightmare

Callan

THE BAR IS FILLED with the usual depressed customers, throwing money over the counter and getting drunk before midday hits.

The atmosphere is cold and miserable inside, despite the flames crackling in the fireplace and the warm glow it illuminates around the room.

Hollow eyes, cracked lips, constantly knocking back shot after shot as they gaze outside the frosted windows. Seeing these men nearly every weekend, broken and given up on life, I promise myself when I die I'll come down swinging. Having met Death in the eye, I have promised myself if my dad ever takes a knife to me again, I will not be pinned underneath his weight. I will fight. That's what I tell myself at least.

While my dad orders a drink from the bartender, I set off to my regular duties: sweeping the floor, wiping over the counter, scrubbing the drunk spillages on the floor, organising and dusting the circular tables, resupplying the cabinets when stocks become low...and cleaning the toilets.

My back and shoulders are aching as I hunch over the rusting toilet bowls, gagging as I shove my gloved hand into the dirty water and begin to scrub with the hand-held bristled brush the manager gave me.

After fifty minutes I'm stinking of urine, shit, sweat, strong cleaning supplies and alcohol. I need a break; I need to get out of here. Leaving the cleaning supplies in the corner of the bathroom, I rush out, making a mental note to clean the mirror.

I sneak out into the back—the supply room— where alcohol has been shelved and recently stocked into cardboard boxes. I can still smell the fumes of the truck that just pulled around the back a few minutes to deliver the supplies. Good, that means I should remain undisturbed

I pick a comfortable spot in the corner of the room, where I can stretch out along the cold stone floor and lean against a stack of boxes resting on a low metal shelf.

Taking my phone out from my pocket and relaxing my stiff muscles, I dial a mate, Winston's Mersin's number. He picks up on the second ring.

"Hey, man. Where you at?" he asks.

"I'm out. You?" I reply.

"Smoking dope mainly. Just got dumped." He doesn't sound too upset. "I don't care. Kat was a damn bitch."

"I agree. Anyways, I'm calling about a party," I say.

"Cool." He sounds enthusiastic. "When? Tonight?"

"Boring," I whine. "I thought you were a rebel, man. I'm talking about a school night."

He laughs and says in mock shock. "Well that just steps across the line, Callan Beckett."

"So can you? We'll be celebrating...I don't know...something."

"Yeah yeah, will do."

"I'm planning on getting wasted." I smile at the thought of dissolving into a blissful oblivion where my demons can't chase me.

"Since when have you ever planned to go out and party and not get wasted?"

"Like, really wasted."

"You're always really wasted."

"I'm not now."

"Point taken. Shit I gotta go, Kats throwing rocks at my window. Damn her," he grumbles. "Alright, Callan, see ya!" He hangs up and I dial another number, one which I've never dialled before.

"Hey, sweetheart," I purr as Ensley Steed picks up the phone. Full on popular bad boy with the cocky attitude here.

"Why are you calling me?" The general question is lost underneath her irate tone.