Chapter 1: Half-light

Ramon “Half-Light” Vieira.
Insomniac since 2013

–

My name is Ramon Vieira,
but everybody calls me Half-Light.
Motel security guard in some industrial wasteland.
Haven’t slept more than two hours at a time since 2013.

In my back pocket, a crushed pack of red Derbys…. always the cheap kind…
and an empty revolver cartridge. No reason to carry it. Maybe just a reminder.

Same with this bottle of eye drops… almost dry, way past expired.
Still carry it like it matters.
My kitchen drawer’s full of overdue electricity bills.
And my soul’s mapped with scars from fights I can’t even remember starting.

Then there’s a torn supermarket receipt.
On the back, in my own sloppy, drunk handwriting:
“don’t forget that it was worse before.”
I don’t even remember writing it,
but I keep it anyway. Just in case.

Some days I wake up with the taste of old coins in my mouth.
Not the drink. Not yesterday’s fight.
Life itself. This rusty thing we call life.

The alarm clock goes off, but I don’t get up.
It’s the smell of burning oil on the street that wakes me.
The scream of a neighbor fighting with his wife.
The sound of a siren trying to convince someone there’s still time to save them.

But nobody saves anyone around here.
We just push through the days like someone dragging a bag of trash with holes in it.

Each job is just another patch on a wrong story.
We pretend it’s for the money,
but it’s just so we don’t have to stay home
with the TV off, listening to the echo of our own thoughts.

The real thing?
I prefer physical pain.
At least it’s honest.

That’s why I wear this rotten jacket,
carry this crooked pistol,
and do whatever it takes.

It’s not courage.
It’s the lack of alternatives.

So says the Code.