Time Served On Other People's Couches...

Night, the woods in silhouette behind her, a girl, or rather, a woman dances slowly, enticingly. Her dress flows about her in the soft breeze, she breathes a wisp of fog into the cool Autumn air.

A face, out of focus, against a dark, yet somehow light background, turns away.

The woods again, now at the periphery of a vacant field; hands reach out to draw eyes back to her, she smiles mischievously and backs away to resume her dance.

A hand, shifting in and out of focus, moves over a chest, gripping on t-shirt above the heart (what is that beyond him?).

The girl, she stretches out her hands again, fingers flex, come closer, they say.

A hand rises out of the darkness,
Flowing.
Twisting.
Writhing.
In time to a music long since past,
Trying to recapture it on the air,
And choking on it in turn.
(Can you see the wallpaper?)

His hands in hers, she leads him in her dance, their shadows lurk amongst the trees, watching and imitating imperfectly. For a second the mischief doesn't reach her eyes, she appears almost sincere, and he drops his head in embarrassment. Their feet move in tandem: fast, slow, fast, slow, he tries to keep his eyes off her, but close as she is, wearing that smile, it seems impossible.
He looks down again, but instead of dirt, soil, and earth, there is beneath him an empty black
He jerks his foot, as it falls into the abyss, and takes him with it.

He jerks his foot, waking him, while his heart still beats to the feel of falling, threatening to burst from his chest though it feels caught in his throat. Still half asleep, he squirms uncomfortably and falls from his perch. He kisses the carpet within a second; this wakes him more fully. With now open eyes he surveys his surroundings, and cannot place where, specifically, he is, besides a lounge room, and the couch he'd made a bed of.
He stretches out, now feeling a need, and proceeds, once up, to search for the bathroom. As he walks the hall his eyes search the rooms on either side, and then he spies a familiar face sprawled across a bed. A minute smile flickers across his face, he lets out a small ("hmmph") laugh. He turns around to find the bathroom directly opposite.
Once done with his business, he takes in his appearance in the mirror, in particular close scrutiny is paid over imperfections. Sunken and red eyes, sallow cheeks, sickly white complexion. His clothes are slept-in, wrinkled, stained. He turns from the mirror now, he knows what to expect, for he's been here before. Maybe not this 'here', but the situation. It seems to follow him, or does he chase it? Sometimes it's difficult to say which is true, when the night before can't be called upon for reference. He doesn't so much mind when there's a certain point in his memory where all simply stops and he wakes up the next morning, but there are other times when he remembers sounds, snippets of conversation. It is these nights he finds most frustrating, like he'd tripped and pulled out the video cable on the television, like he's walking around with his eyes closed.
He wanders back into the lounge and lies back down on the couch. How many times has he found himself here, on a couch? How many more have yet to come? Sometimes he thinks he spends more nights on other people's couches than in his own bed. This is not to say he finds a couch more comfortable (though he'll admit, and even claim proudly, "the couch is my home") but rather it's a testament to his lifestyle. It's a testament to escapism. It's a testament to adaptability. And he finds it amusing that it no longer feels natural to sit on a couch, so if he sits, it's on the floor in front, leaning back against.
Is this him punishing himself, spending all this time aloft in the world, drifting between places? Or is it that he pushes his limits merely to see how far they'll bend before they break? He wakes up at a work-mate's, his mouth tastes of ash, and the odds are he'll have work shortly. He wakes up at Duncan's, he cannot find his pants, but at least there's a blanket here. He wakes up at his parents', by the beach, and jokes on the fact they have no other place for him when he visits. And here he is now, awoken on a couch unfamiliar but for the passed out form in the other room, and a single word pressing on his consciousness, half remembered from the night before: house-sitting.
These days he can fit at least three days in his backpack. The essentials are easy, a standard he has on call in the bag almost constantly: writing utensils (notebooks, pens, etc), iPod, a thick paperback, deoderant, and sunglasses. Clothes are rolled tight thereafter; it's surprising how much you can fit in this state, on average 3 shirts to 1 set of pants and jacket. Sometimes he'll pack a sleeping bag, for he owns one that compresses very well. Only at the end are the socks and jocks stuffed into any remaining spaces, a towel over the top if there's space (one can always be borrowed later if there isn't) and of course a plastic bag for laundry.
These days and nights between 'visits' home are a kind of purgatory, indeed there are times he's thought of home more as a storage shed; a place for all his shit, while his parents refer to it more as a hotel. Regardless, those days pass by in a blur, one blending into the other, each fundamentally the same, the morning spent in recovery, breakfast at noon, public transport to the next place to drop his bag, pre-drinks, go out, wake up on another couch. And when he finally finds himself back in his own bed, he'll wonder where the time went, he'll wonder what he's done, he'll wonder how much he's spent, he'll wonder how much he's eaten, he'll wonder what he's put off, what opportunities missed, what's building up... But though he wonder's all these things, he feels neither stress nor anxiety, no, that comes later, days or weeks away, wen over the smallest thing it'll all suddenly fill his mind once more, worrying pointlessly over this wasted youth; but for now he merely wonders, assessing the damage calmly, almost absently.
And then, worst of all, he'll wonder when he'll do it all again.