A perfect nothing person in a perfect nowhere place

He raised his knees upward as he hugged himself tightly, bracing against the bitter cold which even now, even in his pristine hide, crept upwards under his clothing with fingers of ice, tracing shivers up & down his limbs. By raising his heels from the ground to around thirty degrees off floor level, he was able to set a shaking into his legs, the nerves automatically contracting & relaxing hundreds of times a minute, generating warmth through the rapid muscular action - just one more trick he'd learnt for himself, out in the cold streets, where warm cars swept past uncaring, oblivious to the existential toils he was enduring.

It wasn't their fault, of course, he wasn't bitter - he was painfully aware that he had brought himself to this place, to this point on the linear track of his life to date. Rebel, drug fiend, alcoholic youth, theft from the family - wild hedonism where studious mastery should have unfurled. How had he gone so far off the path? He was an intelligent man, in a seemingly good middle class family.. How had it begun? He eventually realised that he could trace it back to a single decision, as a ten year old boy, innocent to that point, who suddenly decided to follow the neighbourhood ruffians into scallywag behaviours, dossing by the railway tracks, climbing over roofs & hopping through gardens - behaviours which evolved into soft drugs, alcoholism (with thanks to his father's massive stock of home brewed wine, which he never noticed was shrinking rapidly over the course of the two years prior to the final break from the family). That one decision to follow in the way of temptation, to see the exciting life on the other side of those self-same tracks where pennies were flattened & bottles were smashed - that had been the start of his downfall, when Satan had gotten his hooks into his young soul, as yet untested by the world.

But now, as he huddled under the warm draught of the aeration mechanism at the rear of the supermarket, hidden from observers by the two large wheely bins which had been his source of a meal that night, he mused on what it all meant, and where he could go from here. Taking food from a bin should have been shameful - but to him, this night, it had been sacrosanct, a blessing untempered by greed or loss. So much waste, the younger supermarket staff left the bins open, knowing that this perfect nothing person might be desperate, grateful to heaven above for the providence of leftovers from the day's trading.

With the money he had begged that day on the high street, he had been able to afford a six pack of Old Speckled Hen bitter, something to keep him warm & wash away the pain & the tragedy of his failed life, at least for one more night. Nobody would have begrudged him this small pleasure in the midst of sullen despair. He shuffled down in his sleeping bag, sheets of old boxes ripped up & used as a mat to insulate him from the cold concrete underneath. With other boxes he built a fort around himself which happened to look like the work of lazy employees, failing to break down the boxes, chucking them next to the bins with reckless abandon. These were his iron gates against the evil one, against that drunkard, there would always be one, who would put in a hateful kick to the ribs or the crotch just as he was driftinf off to sleep. He had learnt quickly the perils of being seen, in a world which knows you are nothing, which feels nothing for you, which is hard & sharp, cold & edged - the corners & the folds causing intricate problematiques which could not easily be resolved by a young, unstudied, poor in spirit nothing of a man, a boy even, never properly tested by the world.. This had occurred because his choices had led to the secret minders taking an interest, observing, judging (as they were wont to do) before gradually, methodically, doing everything they could to aid in his destruction. Every choice was influenced by his peers - and these were handlers, not friends. Crazy, foolish endeavours, doomed to failure, illegal, crackpot, bizarre - his mental health was spiralling out of control & still they boxed him in, folded him over & over, poked at his sides & sneered in his face, laughing at his failures, egging on the downfall.

And then came the point, the time at which all factors had accumulated, engaged & interacted, intricate pathways of cause & effect, led him to being thrown to the wolves, with no human solace, only mockery & laughter, screeching in the night as the cold, sharp world edged in around him, as he was sent away into the wilderness, to stand or fall by the rules of nature, the laws of the jungle. He was unprepared, and met witches along the way. He found that his nightmares raged on & on, persecutions every night, he was unable to sleep, unable to rest his body & brain, for the visions were terrible, and they never stopped.

In those nightmares, something was stalking him - this was not an ego reflection, some part of his Self that he needed to acknoweldge & reconcile with. No, this was something ancient & dark, its icy glare burning through his mind & soul, pushing him down to submit, to acknowledge his subservience to this great power which hated him in a sharp, clinical manner, pushing visions of depravity into his sleeping mind, trying to cause him to swear fealty, or to pray death over himself. That night, as he slept fretfully under the unfolded boxes, as the warm draught kept his core temperature in the safe range, as everything should have been natural, calm, properly warded against the mischiefs of darkness - he saw it anew - though his eyes were closed, he perceived it somehow, a dark shadow, darker than the blackest night - as if it were sucking all light into itself & hiding it forevermore - descended upon him & drifted itself to fit alongside his astral form, taking up residence with a sharp 'clunk', as it latched into place. The darkness now was in him, he could feel it there, gnawing away at his conscience, trying to grip his morality & hold it far away from the reach of his ordinary ego mind. He wanted to escape, he wanted to kill it, he wanted to scream & flail wildly until the shadow thing was cast out of him, back to the depths of Hell from which it came. Yet now, he was powerless to resist its influence, and only the slightest candle-flickering of grace stayed his hand from the wickedness which the demon had plotted in taking him. And so he waited, unsure of where to go & what to do, how to rid himself of the monster which he knew had taken up residence withing him.

He waited.

A perfect nothing person in a perfect nowhere place - Part One.