The nineties was a time of enlightenment, everyone claimed that era to be the sixties, but we had television ads that told us to have safe sex to prevent aids, to quit smoking to prevent lung cancer, to go to church to prevent going to hell and to say no to drugs. I had declared that I would never be like my parents. The drug taking, smoking, needle sharing, parents who hated church and the people that went to them; not that I wanted to go to church, but I didn’t want to pray to their god, the heroin god. My mum was a disgrace, she couldn’t live a moment without worshipping at the feet of the heroin god, and my dad was her dealer or saviour; however you want to see it. He didn’t do the drugs like she did, but he kept her well stocked up. Her and anyone who had the cash to buy from his constant supply of marijuana, heroin, speed, pills and occasionally coke. Our house was even more of a disgrace than my mum. The house stunk, you had to make trails through the rubbish that littered every room and empty containers holding who knows what, needles that scattered the floor; every surface was sticky with spilled bong water. One corner of the lounge room was growing a pile of discarded cigarette butts. The walls were stained with a thick yellow tar; the curtains although faded and tattered remained closed at all times to prevent unwanted eyes peering into our lives. The toilet was stained brown and stunk of vomit and shit. My only haven in the house had been my room that was kept meticulous. A mattress on the floor, covered in a pretty pink floral quilt. The only furniture in the room, everything else was sold to feed my mother’s habit. I had taken down the curtains, and the windows I kept open at all time, I needed to feel the outside air on me, even during the wet and cold winter.
