Excerpt
It was hot and humid morning in Hong Kong; just what you
don’t need if you are nursing another sickening hangover. It
was only six a.m. and already the shroud of humidity was so
thick that it sat on Joel as he lay in bed. He felt trapped. Trapped
in Hong Kong. Trapped in his profession as an engineer. And yes,
trapped in his drunken ways.
As this has been his morning ritual for more than a few years
now, Joel knew he had to get out of bed and make his way to the
bathroom where he would spend the next ten minutes kneeling
on the floor hovering over the toilet bowl, his body convulsing in
dry and sometimes not so dry heaves.
What a hell of a way to waste a life, Joel thought as he struggled
to escape the sticky sheets that held him in the bed. Before his
feet hit the floor, Joel muttered “Oh shit,” knowing full well that
today was going to be just like any other day as he felt the vomit
start to rise from his stomach. Why did he continue to do it to
himself? Why would anyone knowingly choose to slowly poison
themselves to death?
Below him, the busy, crowded city was in full swing. The daily
rituals of noises and smells were already alive. The traffic below
his tiny room seemed to be a never-ending parade of vehicles,
each fighting its way through the mass of traffic to deliver someone
or something to the appointed destination. If all the noise
wasn’t enough, Joel thought that perhaps the reek of the gas…
Libros Libertad 