Another Late Night

You can try pinching your face but this has a very
limited shelf life.

Even downing another can of Red Bull won’t keep my
eyes from slowly closing.

I do it anyway, I tip my head back and suck in the drink,
I crush the can and squeeze the nasty fluid down my neck.

I pick my teeth with a yellow biro and pull out what
appears to be a fairly large piece of skin. I
scrape the biro on the ashtray and the skin balls up and
gets covered in ash. I try not to think about it and
carry on driving.

My hair is wet with grease and hangs over my face.
I can chew the ends, I taste of cigarettes and chemicals.
This is not a good taste yet I find myself repeatedly
trying to bite and chew the ends. I do this without
realising I am doing it. The hair isn’t quite long enough
so I have to pull a face and distend my lips to catch the
hair, I look chimp like when i do this. I look subnormal.
I would like to break the habit. I need to make the
fringe shorter, I look for some scissors under the
passenger seat as if there was going to be a pair.

There are no scissors under the passenger seat.

I find a lighter.

I’m cold but my back is damp with sweat. I feel itchy
and open yet another can of Red Bull, spilling some of
the sickly sweet liquid over my lap. I open my window
but the noise of the wind is too much.

I have a near miss pulling on to the motorway and narrowly
avoid becoming a news story.

A sculpture.

A bloody, disembowelled transformer.