I don't think people ever realise how powerful a force paranoia is until they've experienced the full ugly brunt of its machinations.

Even as you feel its poison-filled fangs tear deep to your marrow, blood curdling to some murky half-jelly, you still can't quite comprehend the bugger. Its shape, the clear edges of its being, twist and snare into a million different shapes in a nano-second, some comprehensible, not all that comprehensible. To me, the forms it seems to leap between, indecisive with its atoms, seem so polarised...one second I see a little bearded imp in a bright red pointy cap, and the next I see a vast, towering behemoth, a mouth of a thousand septic needles, bone blades bursting from its joints, eyes gimlets of infinity...

Sometimes I think it's better to expect that I'm fucked up and continue on with things.

Paranoia makes me think that the grim, broiling cold ghast of the grey cloud bank is following me like the hounds of the Wild Hunt...every time I a set a foot outside the flat nowadays the weather seems to snarl and vomit in unison at my general presence.

I don't think that's technically possible thought...if it was what would you call it? Snomit? Varl?

Stop it White you're talking like a crazy person...an' you're not even talking you're thinking...an' you're talking-thinking-to yourself.

Fuck, fucking...

Bastard paranoia.

I grind my teeth and scuff the sole of my trainer against the blistered tarmac, looking for all the world like a petulant child...I'm an adult, I'm expected to tangle my rage in barbed wire and shove as far down my gullet as physically possible. Rage is supposed to bubble under the surface, no matter how painful or acidic it becomes. There seems to be some contraband on emotions when your an adult.

Hangover swishing above me like so many vultures around some poor bugger lost in a desert, I feel my shoulders roll as low as they possibly could out of sheer frustration as I trundle on.

I glance up at the shop-fronts internally wincing at the irritating displays of trendy-Christ I hate that word-miscellany, thick rimmed glasses, clip on coon tails, you know the thing...

At least that means the book shop's nearer...it's beginning to feel as if the cold is eating me, vast frosty maws trying to gam through my clothes.

I suddenly realise I smell like a brewery, and stomach bile.

I probably should have apologised to Faith more than I did.

The black frontage of the shop slowly slips into view round the corner, the bright words Books bought and sold and a tiny rainbow flag stamping a shimmer of colour upon the almost opalescent window panes.

I absent-mindedly ram my hand into my pocket as I go to knock, only to feel the characteristic nicking of sharpened cold metal at my knuckles. I pause, digging the offending object out of the deep recesses of my pocket.

The dim silver of the key stands out against the paper white and the dark creases of my palm.

More memories. So many more flowers blooming on fast forward.

They swat my hangover as newspaper would flies.

I click the lock open, the tinny snap accompanied by the dull thunk of the lintel bell. I glance into the dim recesses of the shop, book shelves becoming as monoliths in the grey gloom. Slipping into the shop, I quietly shut the door behind me, eyes taking in another sweep of the shop. Behind the dull patterned curtain concealing the way into the kitchen, a slightly flickering lamp-light punctured the shade. Silhouettes, silhouettes whose edges seemed barely defined shifted through the light, the crash of voices entangled in an argument pounding from the kitchen.

I feel my back muscles tense.

"Listen, I have no idea what your problem is!" came the first voice, unmistakably Elektra's in its ability to sound harsh and soft in duality.

"Haven't you been listening to me?" came the second voice, this being unmistakably Effie's in its soft West Country tilt.

I don't think I've ever heard Effie angry before. I thought she must just be one of those people who didn't have the capacity to get angry.

"Yes I have," Elektra responded, "but all I've been hearing is meh meh meh meh-"

"Well isn't that-" Effie made some weird strangled gurgle at the back of her throat.

"Oh, so that's your comeback?"

"Just stop it!"

"I'm not the one who thinks doing Wookie impression is the way to win an argument."

That's why Effie isn't one of life's argumentative types, she's shit at it.

Effie piped up the courage to make another stab at her point, "Listen, it's just that I find it a bit awkward being around your orphanage-"

Elektra cut across her, voice serrated and stained up to its hilt in blood, "It's a care home, not an orphanage, how many times do I have to fucking tell you-"

"Ok ok, care home...it just I find being around them all the time, your friends from the care home that is..."

"All the time? What d'ya mean all the time?"

"Would it hurt to make friends with some people from outside that circle-"

"I've got you haven't I?"

I suddenly feel my stomach twist itself up ad if it were a tea towel being rung out.

"That's not the point..."

"There speaks a girl overflowing with self-confidence-"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Well then, what do you mean?"

"Eh?"

"There's an irony somewhere in there you know."

"Will you stop mud-slinging for once?"

"No need to get aggressive-"

"You bloody hypocrite!"

"I just mean you try to tiptoe around a subject like it's not even there. Surely it wouldn't hurt to actually say what you actually mean for once?"

Evidently it did hurt as what came after was the exasperated hiss of air being expelled through clenched teeth.

There's an iron-heavy silence, distorted ever so slightly by the sound of someone rummaging around in the cupboards and popping the lid on a coffee jar.

"You have to remember, you did agree with me on buying this place." came Elektra's voice, filling in the silence like liquid concrete in a mold.

"I know...it's just I thought it'd be-"

"Different?"

"Erm..."

"Well I'm sorry to have disappointed you."

"No-it's-I'm sorry."

"Don't be, you've done nothing wrong."

The kettle started to boil.

"If you're sick of spending your time with me just say-"

"I'm not..."

"Isn't that what you where trying to tell me?"

"I-I-"

I stick my head around the frayed edge of the curtain.

"Surprise?" I say, wondering how the hell I made that sound like a question.

Elektra glances over her shoulder at me whilst Effie seemed to shrink into herself out of embarrassment.

"Oh hi White..." Effie stammered, a deep tint of almost fear quivering in her voice, "...I've just got to go an'...defrost the...cat-bye!" She scampered up the stupidly tight steps leading to her flat upstairs, making good her escape.

She doesn't even have a bloody cat.

Elektra began rummaging in the cabinet where they kept the mugs.

"You want a coffee?" she mumbled, back still turned.

I move out from behind the curtain, leaning against the kitchen table, "Yeah, ok."

She turned round slowly, I noticed how bloodshot her eyes were, dark circles running like blue-black streams almost to her cheekbones.

"You hear that?" she asked.

Time to be diplomatic, "Hear what?"

"Nothing."

"Good."

"Good?"

Did I mention diplomatic also means lying through your teeth?

She rubbed her temples sluggishly, "You smell like a brewery...and vomit."

"You don't look to good yourself."

"Charming."

"Charm yourself..."

"That doesn't even make any sense."

"It's eight thirty in the morning and we're both hung-over, it wasn't supposed to make any sense."

She raise an empty mug in a mock-toast, "Amen to that."

I collapse into one of the chairs clustered around the table, plastic legs squeaking against cheap linoleum, propping my chin up by my clenched fists. As I glance lazily around an ice-cold ripple shoots through my consciousness, freezing and jarring the melds of flesh driving my thought patterns. I can feel something stirring, something my poor addled mind couldn't stop without busting open veins and capillaries in a blood flow.

"What happened last night?" I mutter, inwardly cringing at my sheer stupidity, insane thoughts running away from sane thoughts like a bull with a bright red bit between its teeth.

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Why not?"

Stop it! Stop trying to cause a fucking argument!

I hear Elektra give a snort of derision, "Things happen, move on."

"Don't get on your high horse, you were the one who started it!"

"We both got drunk, now will you please shut it?"

"Wh-"

"I've got no time for this bullshit! Christ I never realised how ornery you get when your hung-over."

"If you add a-"

"Don't do that joke."

I finally manage to anchor the mad kamikaze rush pounding a tattoo against my skull, the ice-cold flow becoming a vomit-inducing heat setting my mind in a grim dizzy state, only made worse by a sudden acid flow of unheeded guilt...

They even argue like we used to.

I suddenly find a mug of coffee being shoved under my nose.

"Drink it, we need to sober you up-"

"Because a massive hit of caffeine is really what I need now..."

"Well the bathroom's up the stairs on the left."

"Your sense of care is legendary."

"That doesn't make much sense either..."

I go for the mug, trying to chug the coffee to quell the pounding in my ears. My coughing, squeaking splutter is enough to indicate the success of that venture. Christ, to the rest of the world I must seem like such a fucking mess.

"How's the dissertation on the nature of the universe coming on then?" came the standard snarky reply...well it's not like I wouldn't have done the same...

"Wewy thunni."

To add to the fact that I look like the world's biggest moron, I now sound like the world's biggest moron, pain beyond pain searing deep etched scars against my tongue's flesh. God, this is gonna sting like hell for weeks...

"Go an' get yourself cleaned up, up the stairs on the left..."

"Von't Ethie mwind?"

"Nah, she'll be fine..."

I start to slink up the stairs, the pain on my tongue only matching the pain in my head.

You know what I said about paranoia...imp, demon, imp, demon...fuck, it feels as if my brain is melting to sloppy gloop and sluicing from my ears, black beast stirring, roaring and rumbling. And again, I can't make head nor tail of any of this, paranoia's form becoming as indistinct as ever it was...

Perhaps when I call it the black beast, the black beast and the black gloop...perhaps the colour green would perhaps be more appropriate...

No, don't be stupid...that's-that's...bloody ridiculous, isn't it?

I can't be right...oh God I am right aren't I?

Oh God no.