He woke knowing that he hadn’t slept well.
Despite it being weekend, normally giving them all a bit of family time away from work and study, that wasn’t going to happen. His wife was away for two days visiting her brother’s family, where his wife had just come out of hospital. To make matters worse, his son was away on a trip to a bird sanctuary that had been organised by the veterinary college where he was studying. The fact was, he just hated being on his own. He’d always been that way. This situation may well be the cause of such a restless night and his current raging headache. He rarely had headaches, but it was bad enough to get him out of bed, where he could have happily stayed for most of the day, and go looking for tablets.
He was raking through a jumble of containers looking for something. He found what he wanted at the back of the shelf. Although it had his son’s name scribbled across the label, it was obviously a pain killer. For headaches, it suggested taking one or two for the first four hours. He took two, and still in his pyjamas, wandered out into the back garden for a dose of fresh air. His head was feeling better, but he was feeling woozy. He made his way to the garden bench and sat waiting for it to wear off.
He was admiring the nearby flower bed when the colours began to shimmer. They grew brighter and brighter, then they seemed to burst into flames! He got up, not knowing what to do, and fell over. He was on his back now, looking up at a sky that was green with purple clouds that seemed to be scudding fast across the sky and occasionally rotating. None of this made any sense of course and he knew he should get back inside and lie down. Crawling on all fours seemed to be the safest way to move. It took an age to crawl in through the back door. He couldn’t confront the stairs, so he managed to make it to the lounge, where he curled up on the settee.
Several hours later, during the late afternoon, he became conscious. Wide awake now, but feeling nauseous, he made his way to the downstairs toilet, where he was violently sick. He went to bed early that night, skipping dinner. It wasn’t until the following day that he fully realised he’d discovered his son’s stash of party drugs.