Twisted Tales from Hamburg and Other Stories - Volume 1

By Peter Franklin

‘The room was spinning. Thoughts were pulsing from one vein to the next’.
Twisted Tales takes us through scenes of familiar human conditions.
From complete inebriation through a marriage without love via a gambling addiction ruining lives past the sometimes mean streets of Hamburg then onto to the sunshine of Thailand.
Characters in each story must battle with their own minds and outside influences in order for them to make the right decision which is all too seldom in what we call modern life and in some cases Part 1 is only the beginning of their journey….

• Language: English
• Publisher: AG Books
• Release date: Jun 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781785388460

Book preview

coincidental.

The Room

The room was spinning. Thoughts were pulsing from one vein to the next through tiny cracks on my forehead into my blood stream. I was losing consciousness and I couldn’t control my gag reflex. I grabbed at the Egyptian cotton sheets of the bed that lay underneath my convulsing torso like I was in a climactic embrace. My eyes wobbled like jelly in their sunken sockets where they rolled to the rhythm of the room that was more like a view through a fish eye lens than an actual room where I had been hundreds of times before.

I could taste the sick as droplets worked their way up my throat and into my mouth. My body desperately tried to keep the unwanted waste produce down in the gallows of my stomach for as long as possible.

Trying in my head to remember how the day had come to this point was incredibly difficult and the memories just wouldn’t flow as I had wanted them to. At first, I saw visions from the week before, then only a few hours prior, in a jumbled mish mash of thoughts and dreams. I struggled to piece the pictures together into one cohesive story before ultimately failing and remembering the sick waiting to explode from deep within.

Undeterred from the previous effort and with the danger of imminent vomiting, I tried again to remember any details of why I was unable to function. Questions began to plague my thoughts like who was I last with? I called out for help, but no one could hear me. Where had I been? I called out for water, but no one could hear me. How did I get home? I stopped shouting as it hurt my throat and the puke was waiting to pounce on any unannounced opening of my wind pipe. It was hovering there waiting for me to make a mistake, goading me to cry out louder for help by rumbling itself in my cavern-like belly and making me feel even worse.

The room continued to spin, and I continued to sweat. It dripped gently into my eyes, stinging them as it had slid unobstructed over my defenceless eye brows like unstoppable waves crashing over sand castles at a freezing cold beach resort somewhere in southern England. I tried reaching up to wipe my eyes and remove the river of sweat but I couldn’t loosen my grip on those delicately beautiful bed sheets for fear that the dreaded vomit would finally wriggle itself free and pour out of me like my throat was the famous Mount Etna spewing lava and engulfing Pompeii forever. I wasn’t ready to be Pompeii, I told myself, and that’s what kept me going.

I managed to free one hand from its seriously frustrating grip and wipe the stinging sweat from out of my hapless eyes before quickly returning it to its former position with a slap.

The first step of recovery, I thought, was over and phase two was about to begin. Liquid was trying to make its way out of every orifice of my body and it was the turn of the yellow stuff to try and make an appearance. Phase two was now underway and it felt a great deal more hurried than it should have. Had I been thinking about the other phases too much that I had neglected this phase to the point that I had become desperate for the toilet without even realising it? Either way, I had to get up and at least try to make the bowl or I’d end up stinking of piss, soaking wet and with inevitable sick all the way down my front.

* * *

Dashing frantically in an awkward staggering drunken way toward the toilet room, I stumbled past disregarded items of clothing that I didn’t recognise. I thought immediately that of course I couldn’t recognise them as it was dark, and I could barely see them. I opened the toilet room door to find a computer and printer still on and working but with a lack of human presence. I turned gingerly about face and made my way to another door and as this second door opened, to my delight, I saw the giant porcelain telephone. I immediately sank to my knees as if in prayer at the altar, placing my arms around it and knees in front of it.

Interesting to note that vomit, however, was not forthcoming and I rose to my feet to allow the stream of urine to fill the bowl in front of me. At least I had hastened one evil entity from my body, but I was well-aware that the hard work was still to be done.

* * *

For minutes, I lost myself in that haze of panic and I forgot everything about the situation and why I was in it. I started to dream about simple thoughts I’d been having in previous days. I almost felt like I was in the dreams at one point because I so light and devoid of energy that it was as if my body wasn’t really where it was supposed to be. I struggled to even remember where my actual body was until I dreamed that I slapped myself and I must’ve been at home.

* * *

My eyes opened and the fright of the now blinding light rolled me off the bed. The covers followed my body onto the floor and the soft blue carpet cushioned my fall. When I stood, I noticed that pieces of fluff and dirt had clung to my naked body from the filthy carpet. The carpet in my bedroom was black yet this was blue and why was I naked? My room had different wallpaper and at first, I couldn’t see the window. After finally