Lilies and Swine Chapter One, 1st draft

I opened my eyes spitting dust out of my mouth and pushing myself into a more upright position. Swaying slightly I stared into the hazy horizon, an orange sun just peeping overe the lip of the wasteland. My mouth tasted even staler than the thick air around me. My feet were sore, my neck ached, my head felt muffled with alcohol. Above me a loud squawk pierced my trance and I watched the large black shape fly further and further away untill it was nothing but a tiny black speck. Looking down I took note of my grubby hands and chipped black nails, a ladder climbing from my ankle into a gaping hole at my knee, revealing dirty raw and grazed flesh. The once pristine patent black leather power heels were scuffed and muck encrusted and the pretty peach dress bore streaks of dust like camouflage paint. A gust of wind picked up my matted hair and blew it straight across my face, getting in my eyes and mouth.

“Where am I?” I whispered.

The last solid memory was of my friends standing at the bar, licking salt off their hands before pouring tequila down there throat, then gorging on a lime. “Shit Lily I forgot yours! Sorry, sorry, sorry, let me get you another!” Lou spluttered through the liquor and limes. In the surge of people vying for the attention of the barman I was jostled to and fro, teetering on my insensible heels. Lou grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me against the bar, pushing two shot glasses of clear liquid in my direction with a large dopey grin plastered across her face, “Sambuka gets us more for the money.” Thus I did the only respectful act I could and guzzled them down in quick succession. After that we stumbled together toward a little dance floor to join the rabble of bopping to what vaguely passes for indie pop/electro music. After that, there are just a few blurred faces wobbling around in my memory, lurching and apologising. Everything else was blank.

Blackouts were not uncommon to me, unfortunately. I never seemed to be able to gage when I'd had enough and thus would wake up woozy and confused, semi dressed on top of my duvet. There were always missing phones or keys or money in the morning. I'd have to attack facebook upon waking to find out if I had done anything too embarrassing, more often than not I had. It’s not that I was some sort of alcoholic, just 20 years old and having a good time, and every now and then that good time would take me a tad too far. I would sometiems let myself imagine all the horrible things that could go wrong during a blackout, waking uo in jail or abroad with no money, waking up in some random mans house with no recollection of getting there and not knowing whether I had gone willingly or been forced. These thoughts made my skin crawl. So I started to try and get the blackouts under control, I thought I was doing quite well, until now that is. However all the worrying in the world would never have led me to imagine this scenario, waking up bruised and mucky on a dusty floor without a building or person in sight.

“Here” I swear I heard the air whisper.

The only thing I could see that didn’t appear to be a sort of vast nothingness, was a forest, almost. The word forest seems a little inadequate though, a forest conjures up ideas of green trees and life and vitality, whereas what I could see was more reminiscent of death. The trees were black and leafless against the sky, cruel talons outstretched towards the heavens. It was not an attractive destination, but at least it was a destination, it seemed that tiny bit more promising than wandering through the dusty nowhere for hours on end, so with feet still sluggish and heavy with alcohol I trudged and staggered in my chosen direction.

“I can’t believe I’ve done it again,” I thought, “every single f***ing time I say next time I’ll be more careful, I’ll pay attention, I won’t lose another bloody Blackberry. Never mind my Blackberry I’ve lost my entire purse, when, or if I find a road I’m going to have to hitchhike home, I hate hitchhiking! And god knows how long that will take, god knows where the f*** I am! Never mind my purse, I’ve gone and lost myself! What the actual f***.” The last part I coraked outloud. Normally in my drunken blackout state I at least have the sense to get myself home, so this all seemed quite odd to me, not as odd as it probably should have, I wasn't sure how long I'd been asleep, well unconcious, but I was undoubtedly still rather pissed. My thoughts reeled over my last memories of the night before and how I could have gotten to wherever it was that I had gotten to.

Once I had gotten to the first tree of the dead woodland, I leant my head against the knotted trunk and closed my eyes drearily, lightly drumming my fists slowly on the tree in annoyance. I turned around leaning heavily and stared up at the sky for a moment. Then I realised soemthing was different and gave a little squeak of shock as I lowered my gaze. Sat on its hind legs staring up at me was a pig, or rather, a piglet, pure white like an albino, but instead of those signature red eyes staring up at me, it has these completely black ones, giving it a meek, hopeless espression. I would have thought it was blind if it wasn't for the fact that it was staring right at me. I stared down at this mutation of nature, open mouthed and blinking; hoping that maybe when I opened my eyes again it might have gone. It did not. A theory that I had been spiked with LSD that I had earlier been pondering started to seem very realistic. Although I didn't think even my subconcious was that imaginative. I backed slowly away, and when it didn’t seem to make any attempt to follow me, I turned on my heels and tried a little limping trot in my stupid high heels.

After a couple of minutes of my brisk walking, my head started to go whoozy and I had to stop to regain my dulled sense of balance, feeling dizzy fatigue swim round my head. I turned around and stood opposite me the little white pig, who had indeed followed me. Perhaps it wasn't quite as scary as I first thought, I suppose it was kind of cute, in a really creepy kind of way, like a Tim Burton sketch.

“What is happening to me?” I muttered mostly to myself, then to the pig “do you know what's going on Pig?" My voice went into that wierd gooey accent reserved only for animals and babies, "Are you even a real piggie or did I just make you up? Oh god… I’m talking to a pig that I don’t even know is real. Pig? Pi-iig? What is going on?” The milky pig cocked its head onto one side, almost quizzically. I giggled a little at that, at least I had a some company in this place, be it real or imaginary, I was still grateful. I was also shattered, but I needed to keep going.

I have a very love/hate relationship with high heels, I mean I think they're beautiful most of the time, but I hold the the view on them as a sort of collector, I love to have and to buy them in all their different shapes and sizes, but it's the using them that what I have a problem with. I only really wear them on the occasions that I have to, for one thing I come across as a little too tall in heels as I'm around average height in flats, so that makes me feel a little awkward in the first place. Also my sense of balance isn't particularly great at the best of times so add a pair of six inch stilettos, a couple of rum and cokes and we have a bit of a problem on our hands. Most of all though it's the discomfort, and this was one of those moments where I wish I'd listened to the people saying I wouldn't be able to walk in them, or that they'll give me blisters after a night on the town. Now I was definitely on the hate side of my high heel relationship. After what felt like hours of teetering half dunk on my little stilts I gave in, off they came and I debated seriously about hurtling them as far as I could into the distance. As I started to raise my arm I corrected myself, realising that I had no idea where I was which was bad enough, but having no idea where you are and no shoes is probably worse, so for now it's best not to do anything drastic.

Heels in hand and pig by my side the long walk continued. The trees were so twisted and deformed here, with really dark; almost black bark. From the outskirts of the woodland it seemed competely dead and deserted, but as Pig proved, there was some life here. As I got further in the tree population seemed to get denser, and there were signs of green about the place. The odd bit of moss on rocks, a couple of vines climbing up trunks, the earth was less dusty and more moist. This seemed a lot more promising than the wasteland I woke up in. Although, what was a little less promising was the irrepressable feeling that my tipsyness was fast turning into a full blown hangover, I started to feel a dull thud in between my eyes that pounded down harder everytime my foot hits the ground, the tiny vibrations amplified a thousandfold at that point, smaller than a penny, located directly between my eyes.

"Piiiiiiiiiig" I whined, looking down at my accomplice. "Got any painkillers by any chance?"

Pig looked back at me nonplussed, then lazily slumped back to sit. I agreed with the sentiment of it and sat down on my own very dusty backside. I watched pig for a little while untill he, and the surrounding area seemed to dissolved into slumber.