Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

I turned around, crossing back over the bridge as little lines from his poems in primary six came back to me. What I would do now for a great big chicken burger with lettuce and sauce and mayonnaise…

The sky darkened very quickly. I picked up my speed again. Honest men and bonnie lasses. Honest men and bonnie lasses, my mind raced.  Wee sleekit, cowrin timrous beastie. To a mouse? Harry! He mentioned Burns a few nights ago. It was a small thing, but it must have stuck. Everything sticks. Everything taken in from the environment is processed in some way or another. It becomes you. Environment determines consciousness. What? I thought. Where did that come from? Has someone said that to me too? Environment determines consciousness? No, that can’t be true. Not all the time? Stop criticizing yourself. Think, in this place you feel alive and special and think it’s beautiful, and you feel alive and special and beautiful. What the fuck are you talking about? Nutter.

That’s my stomach rumbling again. Aw, I’m really hungry. Listen to those beautiful geese calling out. Environment becomes you, environment determines consciousness. Like attracts like. C’mon, don’t be scared. You’ll be fine when you get something to eat. That’s it, faster. You can get a fire going.

I arrived back in the dark and climbed inside the tent and switched on the lamp. The rain started coming down hard again, drumming the roof as I pulled out the stove and set up for tea. Ach Aye. Dickhead, Dick fuck up! Chalk, chalk a block Armageddon. Cunt! my mind kept on. I took out a bigger portion of rice than usual and poured it into the pot. The blue gas sparked on and I tapped my foot. Aye Fuckwit cunt flying saucer. I couldn’t sit still.

It’s just hunger. “Calm down.” I said aloud to the silence. Calm down? You’re gonna go fucking crazy in here, girl. Harry aint coming back. You’re all alone. No, he’s definitely coming back, fuck off brain and leave me alone. “C’mon Aisha, shut yourself off.” Switch off. Wanker whimsical wally. He’s dead. No, he’s not. He’s dead right now. He’s lyin in the fuckin gutter with his eyeballs gouged out by the crows. Shut up! “C’mon, calm.”

What time is it? Five, or six. He’s running amok. Running through the streets with stolen gear getting chased by the cops. No, he won’t even be there yet. I rubbed my face roughly and massaged my temples with my fingers. I picked up Harry’s Moonwalking with Einstein book from on top of his clothes.

What you doin? You don’t want to read that. It’s shite, what you reading that for? Can’t handle me?

I dropped the book and focused on the flame. Focused and focused and narrowed my eyes till the thoughts in my head receded. Calm. Calm. Calm yourself. Focus. Then I started to think of Swedish and Polish people saying focus, and it sounded like fuck us, and they kept repeating it over and over.

“It’s okay. It’s all okay.” I said aloud.

The water started bubbling, it’s like a witch’s cauldron, and minutes later the rice was soft and fluffy. I dished it all into my bowl and wolfed it all down hungrily then drank all the water from the pot. You still hungry? You should have some more. Feel it sitting inside your stomach, like Jonah in the whale waiting for a friend? More! More. Will I have more? I can’t, they’ll be nothing left. I’ll have some more. I put in more rice and water and boiled it up again with rosehip syrup to flavor it.

I ate it all, and felt satiated. My stomach felt full, and the voice in my head faded. I put away the stove, picked up my notebook and started writing. The winds whispered outside. The trees lullabied.

Chapter 51

A fter half an hour of furious scribbling, I put the notebook down. I had written ten pages. I thought I could feel my mind tiring out towards the end. But it started again almost immediately, Bastardfuck shit-ass. I tried to ignore it. Eat too much you grow stupid and eat too little you become crazy. And fat bastards. Fat bastards everywhere. One and a half billion starving, one billion obese. Do the maths. And what are you doing about it, CUNT?????? I grabbed my CD player and plugged in Nevermind and turned it up till Kurt was screaming into my ears. I lay back in my sleeping bag and thrashed the floor with my foot and beat invisible drums with my fists. The energy inside was insatiable.

Next morning, I peeled back the door to see another wet, grey sky. Light rain was trickling down. Judging by the light it must have been about eight.

I feel better this morning, I thought. More coherent. Less anxious. I poured the porridge and let it boil, realising that for the fourth day straight I’d woken up about the same time; just after sunrise. And it was often the birds that woke me, like an alarm clock. I was adjusting to nature.

When the porridge cooked up, I chewed it slowly. I licked the pot clean, pulled my hair back and my hood up, and went out to the stream. I washed the pot and splashed my face, and went for the toilet, and cleaned myself. Then I came back and packed my bag, putting in my notebook, the Einstein book Harry had left, and his Edible Plants book too.

The rain turned the gravel road a darker shade. It rippled the loch and landed silently in the moss. My polyester jacket crackled, and I tightened my hood till it was like looking out from the entrance of a cave. I can’t complain, I thought. It’s the reason for all this beauty. It’s what makes it so green. You need the different weathers as well, and anyway, that grey sky seems