It’s hard to feel romantic sitting on plastic bread trays, staring at the flashlight from a security camera as it sweeps the yard. It’s three hours past midnight. Even the dirty old men are asleep; the dangerous alleys and car parks lie empty of crime. I look past the barbed wire fence towards a line of megastores, just disorganised boxes, unlit and anxious.
I sip from stolen bourbon and pass it to Ginny. She wears ribbons to the Nightshift, and little bells on her shoes. She thinks we are butterflies in a scrapyard looking for flowers, but right now I’m just looking for dawn. I’m looking for Vitamin D. My eyes ache from flourescent lights and my teeth crunch with dust. I smell of polyester and cat food. Dead from the lips downwards, only her neck excites me when she rolls a knot from her shoulders.
Later, in a dark corner of the warehouse, Maroon approaches me with a tatty five pound note. He always gives me this so he can rummage in my pants for thirty seconds, and – so help me god – it’s more profitable than overtime, so I accept. Hands around my junk, he breathes into my face and his permanently clogged nose burbles, as I count the seconds in my head.
When the gas explosion happened I was staring at a slice of mouldy bread hanging over a metal shelf. I realised, in those split seconds before my violent disintegration, that I’d messed up my final scene.
