Trauma. Pain. Distress.

Trauma. Pain. Distress.

This day was fashioned in the depths of hell by Mr Lucifer himself. I felt half a man.

Thursday night was bitchin’.

Friday a.m. was … n’t.

This velvet morning, I woke to an empty, mysterious flat. This was wrong. I should have been under He-Man duvet in Outer Blackheath. This, my friends, wasn’t Outer Blackheath.

The flat in which I woke was fucking freezing. The room in which I regained consciousness held no furniture. I had slept, curled, on an unforgiving carpet-less floor. Cold, white light flooded from the naked windows, amplifying dry skull pain. My mouth tasted of cigarettes, my shirt - speckled with sick and blood and black. I wore no trousers. My boxer shorts, thankfully, remained intact.

A quick (half-naked) exploration of the flat revealed it to be empty, save for me and my hangover. A most troubling situation. A further scout confirmed the flat to be lacking trousers, although I discovered my white shirt, tweed jacket, socks and shoes abandoned in the hallway. They smelt of garlic. I was standing in the small, white and DIRTY kitchen, drinking brown water from the tap when images of the night before flashed across my dulled mind.

Trousers off, twirling above my head. I was shouting. There were banks of faces watching me blankly. Pink Tom, turning, telling me 'it was only a quarter to nine and I was out of control’. A bouncer approaching, mean-faced.

Later – walking streets alone. Lost. A sudden compulsion to remove trousers once more.

Much later - a dancefloor. I was wearing trousers, but DIFFERENT trousers. Talking to a girl who thought I was a girl. I'm not a girl.

Red vomit.

I left the flat. And emerged into an area of London unknown. Acton Town. In the suburban street, I stood for six minutes, praying that someone I knew might walk past and assist.

They didn't.

And so I was forced to board a bus claming central town as its destination.

Before leaving the mysterious flat, I had searched through the bedroom’s bank of Ikea cupboards for something in which to wrap my legs. These wardrobes were full of frilly shirts, but as trouserless as my legs. I could only find cycling shorts. Having no alternative, I pulled them on. They were NEON GREEN. I see them still, Reader. In my nightmares.

I know not in whose flat I awoke. There were slight suggestions of blood on upon my shirt.

The bus’s display hadn’t lied and after forty minutes of travel, the red double-decker rolled up in Trafalgar Square. The place was a morning knot of Spanish tourists and pigeons and noise. Although conscious of wearing tight neon-green cycling shorts with a white dress shirt, suit jacket and EXPENSIVE SHOES, I was more aware of the terrible hollow hunger that pulled at my guts.

I bought some sandwich from Pret-a-Manger and ate it over The Guardian outside the National Gallery. Wet London’s temperature was winter cold, but the stab of hangover disguised the chill. I worried not for my heat. Instead, I revelled in munching my Panini.

Until, that is, I was approached.

“Kay? Kay Richardson?”

Without thought, I guessed it a punter requesting an autograph.

But I soon realised that I wasn’t famous (enough) yet.

So I looked up. Damn. It was the ugly witch from Macbeth. My heart sank. She was staring at my groin. The tightness of the green Lycra gave the area a pornographic tint.

“Hello,” I said and moved to position the newspaper over the contours of my genitals. “What are you doing here?”

I even smiled.

"Taking my parents to the gallery,” she replied. I noticed two serious grey people to her left. The man shook his head. The woman looked elsewhere.

“Well … enjoy,” I said, summoning as much enthusiasm as a Lycra-clad, hung-over actor in Trafalgar Square could (not much).

Ugly witch said:

“He’s the one I was talking about.”

And gestured to her parents to leave. As they moved out of earshot, Father asked if I always wore such clothes.

I threw down The Guardian  and finished my Chorizo Panini with a flourish. I didn’t care what the witch thought of me, or told her parents. Fact – she was only a fucking witch and I was Malcolm, King-to-be.

It was a subdued train journey home to Outer Blackheath. Thankfully, the train carriage was empty- nobody else had the opportunity to complain of my shorts.

I burnt them in the sink on returning home. It felt good. It felt potent.