Hooded Beings.

After living under London Bridge Station I moved in with a girl I got together with.

We had a rather full on passionate relationship which only lasted about a year and a half.

We were completely different. She was a 'high on life' type of girl who loved having adventures, travelling the world and living life to the fullest and I was a drunk and just stayed in my room.

She saw the crescent, I saw the whole of the moon,...sorry.

I was also a very jealous boyfriend and didn't like all the time she spent with male friends. I've grown up quite a bit since then, but it turned out my jealousy wasn't completely unfounded as eventually she admitted to me that she had not only seen other people but also had never broken up with her previous boyfriend and even though we lived together she often went and stayed with him and he thought he was in an exclusive relationship with her.

I was so smitten though, that I forgave all that and really just wanted to be with her. I felt like we could work it out and that we were meant to be together.

Apart from the cheating and that, she was really good to me, we had a lot of fun together.

She seemed to care about me and worried a lot about my drinking, she tried to organise me to get help a few times, I started seeing councillors in strange little scary pockets of London.

The end came one morning when she got out of the shower and walked into the bedroom at 7a.m. before work and caught me glugging red wine straight from the bottle.

We split up and I moved into a flat share with a guy who seemed nice enough but turned out to be an annoying moron.

My drinking got even worse, I was really caning it.

I'd been in pain for a few days with my kidneys, it wasn't good.

I was drinking before, during and after work and on this particular day my job involved visiting a swanky bar in Chinatown in London where I was organising our works Christmas do.

They wanted me to test and approve the cocktails they had lined up for the party night of all things, which I did wholeheartedly.

I'd been feeling ill all day and getting drunk was not helping like it usually did.

By the time I got to the pub that evening to meet a friend I was worried about how bad I felt and how much pain I was in. The pain from my kidneys had started to spread all over my back and I felt like I was deteriorating rapidly and felt like my body was trying to shut down.

I remember leaving the pub panicking and getting on the tube, the second stop was Waterloo and I knew St Thomas' hospital was near there so I got of the train and exited the station.

I was staggering around in confusion trying to follow signs to the hospital which just seemed to take me in circles.

I kept looking at passers by pleadingly and tried to pluck up the courage to say I need help.

I really felt like I was going to die, I'd been pretty messed up plenty of times before and even been to urgent care with kidney pains but this was next level.

I suddenly thought, I don't want to die in front of strangers, so I flagged down a black cab and got him to take me home to Kilburn.

Fortunately I knew my idiotic flatmate was away so had the place to myself.

I couldn't stop throwing up and I kept trying to drink water but it kept coming straight back up. My whole body was now in pain and burning up, I had massive chest pains and collapsed on the floor.

I was whimpering and all the pain in my body and head turned into a weird kind of feeling of electric fuzz. I remember thinking this is it, this is how I go.

I was pleading to whoever or whatever, my body was spasming now, I said in my head, 'I promise if I make it through this, I'll stop drinking for good'.

All of a sudden there were all these beings in the room, stood in a circle around me as I lay on the floor.

I could barely breath and was rapidly panting but completely paralysed I screamed on the inside thinking 'What the fuck is this!'

I felt totally conscious as much as I feel conscious writing these words now

I couldn't see their faces, they were in hooded robes and it just looked dark inside their hoods because of the ceiling light behind them.

I couldn't sense whether they were good or bad, whether they were there to help me or take me away. It all got too much and I passed out.

I woke up the next morning and couldn't believe I was still alive.

I could hardly move but managed to drag myself to the sink and drank water.

I was still in pain but not as bad, I could hardly even get out of bed for a week and struggled to walk. It was days before I could keep anything down but water.

I kept to my promise though and stopped drinking........for a while at least.

I got together with Bella whom I'm still with now, sixteen years later.

Unfortunately, around eighteen months after I stopped drinking, I went for a check up at the doctors, he gave me a clean bill of health and I went straight to the pub afterwards.

I often think about that day I thought I was going to die, especially some days when I'm feeling particularly anxious.

That's just my life...we all have those little worries that keep rearing their heads though, like 'I hope those hooded beings don't feel like I crossed them somehow by breaking my promise and will rain down revenge upon me'.

Then sometimes I think, 'It's not like I'm not an interdimensional being myself, it's not like they can do anything, what can they do?'

Then I think 'Stop thinking that you idiot'.

This painting is part of my 'Strange and Sometimes Troubled Memories' series, which will culminate in an exhibition of twenty one paintings and blog posts beside them.

'Hooded Beings' Acrylic on canvas board 40 by 30cm

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