Stained
an excerpt

So I was once the Tarot Fool, but I guess now I'm the Hermit. The cards tell a story, if you want to believe that crap. The Fool is just this naïve little idiot who sets off on a journey, falls down a metaphorical cliff, learns a thing or two. He makes decisions, learns about the cardinal Virtues, what ever you want. Loses his idealism. At the bottom of Life's great big fucking let down of a cliff, he's become the Hermit, in the dark, alone with a weak lantern and a sinister snake for company. I wonder if he likes the solitude. Depends what the guy's like, I guess. He might enjoy the time alone to reflect on the lessons his fall has left him with. If he's like me, he'd hate it. The darkness pulses around him, his past mistakes haunt him, the lessons were too hard. Instead of improving him, they may yet have broken him.
Solitude blares in my ears like thundering silence. Brooke's face and voice haunt me. The dirtiness of my coffee cup accuses me; a discolouring high tide mark from days, or maybe weeks without washing any dishes. I don't know why I should. Nobody is about to visit me, and they'd be unwelcome if they did. Let the bloody plates stack themselves up to the ceiling. Let the external dirt reflect the internal. Is this not who I am now, anyway?

I remember being struck by the way a coffee cup can be a mirror of the soul of the owner. It is, perhaps, a strange connection to make. I don't consider this a problem. Life is a strange entity.
My mother used to drink decaf. I've never seen the point in decaffeinated coffee. I mean, sure, you can drink it for the taste, but why not drink it for the caffiene as well? Anyway, everything in her house was always rediculously clean. The cups were made of that really thin china ceramic stuff, breaks easily if you do the dishes clumsily. And painted with flowers in pastel colours. This is pretty much the way I always think of my mother. Fragile, pretty, always on display. Even when nobody else is around, she behaves as if she is on stage. She could be vacuuming and make it look like a performance of domestic bliss.
The moment anyone had finished a drink in her house, the vessel was whipped away and filled with water, left to soak on the bench; stains are anathaema to her. I wonder what she'd say to the state of my flat here. Stained mug, stained carpet, stained paint probably covering stained wall paper. Stained. Stained self.
The mug I'm drinking out of is that thick industrial type stuff. It's not supposed to break for anything, but there's a couple of chips on the handle. There's a bright yellow smily on the side, grinning slightly cross-eyed at the inscription. 'Avoid the hangover –stay drunk!' The picture is faded. I've had it for years, a decade, more, I have no idea. There are black gritty dregs of coffee in the bottom, up the sides, around the base. I guess this reflects on me the same way.