Abandoned (Chapter Two)

After hours of melancholy, slumped over in his plastic chair the young man was now badly drunk. Somewhere through the fog in his mind he decided it was time for bed. With difficulty he stood, staggered badly as he attempted to navigate his way through the row of plastic seats. He was headed back inside the stadium towards the expensive VIP boxes above. After several minutes of hauling his dumb limbs through the unlit stadium, fumbling badly with only a torch to guide him, he eventually reached the door of the VIP box, a place once reserved for the wealthiest of footballer fans. He wrenched the door and fell immediately onto his face, blacking out.

The room he had attempted to enter was fairly large with wooden floors and giant glass screen which looked out over the pitch, separating the wealthy former inhabitants from the common crowds below. It would once have been elegantly decorated with dark leather seats looking out over the pitch. An elegant, mahogany dining table would have stood in the middle of the room for all kinds of exquisite foods to be served onto. Now however, the table was gone and in its place the man had accumulated a strange collection of objects; real gold bars stacked high against the right hand wall, a large pool table stood in the centre of the room, vintage guitars, movie props, real dinosaur bones, expensive paintings and sculptures also filled the room, giving it a jumble sale like feel. To the left hand side of the room a large regal looking bed, had been the man's drunken target, rather than the floor. The search for and collection of these things had given the man hours of enjoyment. Eventually, however, he had had the crushing realisation that none of these things held value anymore, it was only ever the value others placed in them that made them worth having. The enjoyment had faded and turned sour, quickly they became nothing but a reminder of the world now lost to him. The room hadn't been spared the neglect he was now treating his own body with, mounds of dirty clothes, left over’s from foods stained the floors and walls, empty beer bottles had been smashed against the wall in a midnight fits.

The man snored loudly and deeply, he was now deeply asleep.

He had been unconscious for hours as he began to shake, thrashing out …

“CHANGE............”

“CHANGES …....”

The man woke screaming into the empty world. He screamed and screamed until his throat felt raw and bloodied.

Terrified, that single word rang through his mind over and over …

“CHANGES …...”

That word. The word which had so haunted him for five whole years. Hardly a night had passed without that word ringing through him like evil bells, piercing his very soul and with it the vivid memories of the past.

The man lay face down on the floor, shaking violently, unable to shake away the vivid memories of the past now playing out in front of his eyes for what felt like an eternity.

The man’s head throbbed horribly, he was dehydrated, his throat red raw. He slowly sat up retching as his did so. He was badly hungover, a feeling he was far too familiar with. He couldn't remember the last time he had gone to bed sober. He sobbed hysterically, consumed by grief and guilt, screaming out into the world;

“Why? ... why? … why? … If it wasn’t for me they would still be here! All of them!!!”

“What the fuck do I do? What the fuck is the point?”

“Please … please, please, please let today be different”