The chemical concoction seeped into her body, the liquid radiated warm, sedative comfort. She knew the effects; in her short life she had already come to depend on them. Her eyelids fell, she leaned back in her chair and let out a long, tranquillised sigh as her arm fell to the table with the empty cup.‘More tea, Pru?’ said Norm.A grey afternoon. And Kelvin had never felt greyer, or sicker. All colour gone, from him, from the parade of shops he walked past, traffic it hurt his head to look at as he crossed the road, mad visions of even his blood’s redness leaching away.Sensation gone too, except pain. Pain that began hours ago between his shoulder blades, spread through his ribs into a 10-tonne, coat-of-lead ache with every step. Moaning for relief through the metal taste in his mouth, the insomnia-lethargy, nausea, dehydration, irritability, anxiety, tearfulness and shot concentration, he needed another hit, now, to ease the pain, but he was all out. ‘Now’ was all he could think of.
