The last chord rings through the air before the crowd starts cheering. Their cries echo through the pub and into the streets. With a final farewell to the rowdy people below them, the band retreats backstage to begin packing up their gear. The roadies already onstage collecting amps cables and microphones. The vocalist ignores all this, slumped in a chair, trapped in his own fantasy.

‘I think I took too much before the show, everything’s becoming a blur.’ He thought to himself, the beginnings of a head ache starting to hound him. Not enough time seems to pass before a pair of hands drags him into the back of van. People, his band members, are talking and laughing, handing around booze, recounting the successful gig. The lit up sign of the Strand Hotel could be seen growing smaller behind them. His headache is roaring now, a constant ache. There’s no water, so he takes a swig from the bottle in his hands, wincing as the bitter, amber liquid burns his throat. He’s going to regret this later. Bottles are passed around for about half an hour, when they are finally emptied.

Soon enough, they all stumble out, apparently already in Ipswich, at their shit apartment they all share. There’s four of them all together, as well as their manager. The young men trudge into the living room, falling onto couches and chairs, ready to sleep; preparing for a killer hangover in the morning. However, the vocalist makes his way to one of the bedrooms, clothes and papers strewn across the room, with a little hardwood floor to be seen. The only furniture in the room are a flimsy metal bedframe with a threadbare mattress and a banged up, cypress desk with an equally damaged chair.

He makes his way over to the bed and leans down, hand groping underneath for something. It is finally found, and pulled from underneath the bed frame. It’s a garbage bag, with smaller bags inside it. He chucks it on the desk and falls into the chair. Some of the little bags have fallen out, and seem to hold a white powder. For a moment, he panics, head whipping to the door before grimacing in pain, his headache now worse than a herd of stampeding rhinos.

Despite the raging headache, his mind begins to clear a little.

‘I need just a little bit, to keep me awake.’ He thinks, trying to justify it to himself. With practised efficiency, he opens one of the bags that was scattered across his desk, taking care not to spill any of its precious cargo. He hesitates; but with a shake of his head, grabs a straw, sticks it up his nose, before snorting the whole thing, ripping a burning trail in his nostrils. If there was anything he hated about drugs, it was the pain; always pain before and after he was high. Of course, this made him want the drugs more, to ease that pain. Glancing down, he had no idea what he just inhaled, but he could feel it beginning to do its job, and that was all that mattered.

Besides pure elation, he took these drugs to assist with creativity. They loosened up his mind, freed it so he could think of things and connect them in ways that he couldn’t do when he wasn’t high. Early into song writing, he discovered that writer’s block was a big problem.

He also took them to stay awake. He often pulled all-nighters to keep writing, especially after gigs; he was always already high or drunk.

The band knew about the drugs, but didn’t do anything about it. As long as they got a song that wasn’t crap, they were okay with anything he did; as long as it didn’t affect them and their drinking. Bloody bastards even encouraged it, if it would help him with his ‘shit chicken scratch songs’. He knew they were screwing him up though. Thought about it with very intake, if just for a second. If his father saw him now, well he’d be certainly be disappointed. It was times like these when he was glad the old man wasn’t around anymore.

Except this time it wasn’t working; word after word, none of it was good. His thoughts flowed like a river, ideas coming to him endlessly, some of it was good, but it was material he used before. He needed to write something, anything, before the drugs wore off and he blacked out. His thoughts were becoming too fluid now, almost lucid. He was starting to panic, but yet remained completely calm.

He began to hallucinate, visions of strange monsters and beings floating in front of him, hissing foreign words, almost singing. Completely engaged with the images and songs, he didn’t notice his hand moving.

Through all of this, an ignored voice was nagging at the back of his mind; his father’s. Constantly raving on about how he was getting too dependent on the drugs, that this wasn’t how he would’ve wanted him to end up. Silently, he agreed with the disapproving voice, but knew he would sit and medicate for as long as he was able, he couldn’t stop now.

Time seemed to fly by once more. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by papers and plastic packets, sunlight filtering through the blinds, momentarily blinding him. A headache hounded him again, like thunder. His vision beginning to clear, he noticed a layer of white powder covering the desk like snow. Beautiful. Shouldn’t waste it. He swiftly and efficiently swept the powder into a zip-lock bag that he kept on standby for occasions like this; he found that as well as writer’s block, playing with drugs while high was also a problem. After every black-out, he would wake to find himself in some kind powdery mess, often resembling a snowy landscape

Grunts and shuffles of his hungover band members drift through the door he left ajar. It seems he blacked out. Again. Wanting to prolong viewing the fruits of his efforts from the night before, he gazes around his room, taking stock of his measly possessions. A couple of dog-eared books, a broken guitar and the clothes strewn across the floor. He lets out a sigh. This was the best it was going to get, and he knew it. Despite all their dreams of international fame and adoring fans, they all knew they weren’t going any farther than the local pub.

Turning his head slowly as to not aggravate his headache, he glanced at the work that was haphazardly piled in front of him. He did it again. It was pretty good actually. He felt reassured that his writing process continued to work.

The sounds of dishes and a hissing jug began to reach his ears. Today would be a day of lazing around and nursing hangovers with cups of coffee. He sits back in chair, gazing at the ceiling, absentmindedly reaching for the zip-lock bag containing the left-over powder from the night before.

“Guess I’ll sit around and medicate.”