Her cigarette smoke breath swirled through my dreams, playing out in projections on the reflective surface of the brackish pool my feet soaked in.

What the fuck am I doing here?

The unknowing, indifferent and cackling chirps of a far-off group of cicadas answered my question with their ignorance. I had come here to forget, to be immersed in a world which was as blind to my problems as Stevie Wonder was to the colour of his keys.

Fat lot of good it did.

The harsh and clear liquid squirmed its way out through the neck of the bottle as I thrust to reluctant lips and into and down my mouth and throat, stoking the bubbling cauldron of warmth and nausea that was my stomach.

Vodka almost tasted good if one was sad enough, almost.

I closed my eyes and fell back into the soft embrace of the warm Australian earth, the red bush dirt rushing up to cradle my head amongst its grainy and sun-kissed bosom.

Something brushed against my foot, I didn’t care, I wasn’t there. I was lost in the undulating and roiling waves of the earth and my drunkenness. And, as though a damn had broken on my intoxication, I plummeted through the floor of the world, falling into that tenebrous and viscous void of ink black nothingness, caught in the eddying, swirling currents of its absence. I then pivoted onto my side and retched onto a near by shrub. Nothing came out, I was hollow.

With my body heaving and back arched like a cat post-dousing I spat a glob of thick and yellowing phlegm onto the fibrous leaves and twisting, angry trunk of the stubborn little sprig of nature which was clinging to the stony bank of the billabong.

I rolled back over, away from the now traumatised plant and spread eagled my dishevelled form across the scattered pebbles, red earth and smatterings of sand and silt which had been unceremoniously spat out by the near pitch pool my feet where still submerged in, the shoes they had once occupied tossed haphazardly against the peeling trunk of a nearby paper-bark tree, crawling with chitinous rivers of ants as they moved up and down the cracked and perforated bark.

Looks like everybody has somebody. To your health and a lengthy paring.

I gestured to the tree and its polyamorous cadre of insectoid lovers/co-inhabitants with the now half empty bottle of clear, nose-hair singing regret before turning it ass over end, sending yet another sortie of its entirety into the recesses of my being. Then I began to cry.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I cried in the manner of a man who believed no one was watching him, that wailing lament of mucus and tears which oozed out of the slowly puffing and reddening face in a mixed and foul concoction which served only the purposes of bringing forth a headache and soiling one’s clothes. It fulfilled both, more than I had ever accomplished.

Eyes closed I was again tormented with the images of her lithe form bending in all sorts of ways for the long haired and bronze skinned dance instructor I had found teaching her at 1 o’clock in the morning. Instructing her on the intricacies of fucking in racked, laboured, barely parsed out whispers into her small, almost elfin ears from behind as he rammed away at her sweating and rippling arse.

Fuck with a broom whichever parent I inherited my memory from.

I opened my eyes, replacing the memories of infidelity which the tapestry that was the Australian night sky, the countless pinpricks of light lancing their way through the fog of darkness to reach and embrace the earth with their soft, almost gentle glow.

They were beautiful, they were kind, they were unmolested by this putrid, corrupting mess that was humanity, they were… Getting closer?

I sat up fast enough to double over my drunk body, overloading my already strained sense of balance and sending my head hurtling between spread legs, landing inches away from the crotch of my dirt stained jeans.

Sitting back up, resting on arms thrown carelessly behind my back, I cast a slack jawed mouth to the quickly and worryingly brightening sky. From needle points to golf balls to base balls to soccer balls the mass of thousands of suns began to fill the sky with a purging, purifying, painful sheet of whiteness and heat, lighting up the entire sky, abluting the surface of the earth of its impurities like a vengeful god. But, before that, before the broiling embrace of heat and light was loosed upon the virgin soil of our world and that alabaster hued sheet of white hot death touched down upon the earth, a whining, droning, metallic tone rung out and was heard all across the planet in the same, consistent, slightly too loud to be pleasant volume.

The reaper spoke thus:

“Shah’kuul, spa-a’akart! What do you mean the translator was off? Never mind, Greetings people of… Earth! I am required by the Fourth Statute  of ‘The Declaration of the Galactic Commission on Sentient Non Federation Member Species’ to provide you with the details of your non-negotiable termination and with, as required by statute five, time to make your peace with your circumstances, time which has been allocated for after this message has completed. The core to your world has been identified as being corrupted by the Commission on the Identification and Location of Hazardous Celestial Bodies, and in accordance with the agreed upon protocol of the Federated Council of Intelligent Species, your world and assets have come under the direct custody of the Commission of Waste Disposal and Recycling and, in accordance with the Federation’s stance and our policy on the disposal of hazardous assets, all non-tainted property shall be auctioned off to private entities after which the remaining corrupted resources and inhabitants of your planet shall be disposed of in a most painless and efficient manner. We thank you for your cooperation in this endeavour and apologise for this most untimely termination of your species. You have until the end of the auction, which shall begin after the tone, to make your peace.” It played again, the noise like that of a robot being strangled in the bathroom of a club before… Silence.

Well not really, the bush was a cacophony of panicked animals screeching at being forced back into a diurnal routine at such an un-godly hour. However the voice and the tone had receded back into that angelic, luminous sword of Damocles which hung over all our heads. I pulled out my phone, recoiling slightly at the cold metal, a juxtaposition with the pleasantly warm air around me. Switching it on I contemplated calling someone for a moment, my parents, my ex, her new boyfriend. A chuckle breeched my lips slightly at the last idea.

I put the phone back away and tucked two plastic nubs into my ears and smiled weakly at the familiar beats of the old songs which had begun to play.

I closed my eyes and finished the rest of the bottle and waited to see whether or not I was going to die or if I had finally gone insane.

The momentary blast of pain and the boundless nothingness which followed proved me sane an hour and a half later.