Waking Broken by Huw Thomas

that a night’s sleep had done nothing to erase yesterday’s delusions. Either that or the nightmare was still not over.
    Accepting this as reality in the absence of any alternative, at least Harper now knew where he was supposed to live. Brendan had told him he rented a gloomy attic flat on a street overlooking the railway station. Harper even remembered the flat. He had looked at it when he first moved here to take up a job on the city’s daily paper. He had thought about taking the place. It was cheap and convenient. But also noisy. In the end, he opted for a place in a shared house in a village a few miles out of the city. He stayed there until moving into Rebecca’s flat shortly after proposing to her. A couple of months later, they moved into the place in William Street.
    But, in Brendan’s version of the world, that was where Harper lived and he was in no position to argue. Not much he knew seemed to be right, so maybe he did live in the flat. The choice of accommodation would appear to match his clothes: scruffy and down-at-heel but practical and cheap.
    Sometime, Harper knew he would have to go to the flat even if just for fresh clothes. But the thought hardly filled him with joy. Who knows what else he might discover? There could be all manner of clues: things about which he would much rather remain oblivious.
    Like his fingers. And the cravings.
    Harper stared at the faint yellow stain around his thumb and forefinger. He had seen worse but it was still there. And although his mind denied it, his body did not. He was a smoker. Had been for years. Never given up. The hacking cough when he woke and the thick phlegm was a sure giveaway too. Last night, even while his mind was telling him he did not want one, part of him was desperate to grab a roll-up off Brendan.
    And it could so easily have been true. Because he had smoked: he started when still a kid. At school, smoking gave you credibility with your peers, or so he thought back then. Cigarettes were a way of trying to impress girls he was too shy to actually talk to, as well of trying to keep up with his cousins and their older friends. As a youngster, Danny Harper was keen to prove himself one of the lads. And, as he got old enough to drink, the habit lasted. It was the thing to do. And after the pub it was the spliffs. That was one of the benefits of growing up in a backwater like Cornwall; all those fishing boats and empty coves meant a ready supply of wacky baccy: as much part of the culture as pasties and clotted cream. And in those days, anything that went against his parents’ strictures was embraced.
    But then he moved away, started to grow up and get a little bit more mature. Giving up smoking had been hard though; he still remembered how long it took. Even years on, sitting in a pub with other smokers brought the odd twinge. He had cut down on drinking too, continued saying no to cigarettes and only smoking joints on the odd night out. Now he was in his thirties, his body was clean compared with a decade earlier.
    Harper set his mug down on the table and stared at his fingers. The nicotine stain was still there. And he had Brendan’s word for it too.
    Perhaps he was mad. That was one answer. It certainly made sense.
    Harper gave a bitter laugh. But if he was mad then fuck, was this delusion realistic or what!
    He closed his eyes and blinked back tears.
    In truth, it was terrifying. Not only had the logic gone out of his life, he had lost the most important thing in it. He had been sure he loved Rebecca; that was why he asked her to marry him. Now she had been taken from him, though, he was starting to realise what love really meant. It was more than just fondness and fellow feeling. It was need, security and comfort. It was completeness.
    Without her, a hollow space existed inside him. He was lost and frightened and his instinct was to turn to her. It was not something he even needed to stop and think about. In a crisis, she was his touchstone. But.