THE COST OF SUGAR

Although based-on-fact, parts of this narrative have been fictionalised: for reasons of continuity, several marsupials may have been combined into one; the author has at no time actually worn razorpants (Note: the author asserts his rights as originator of the word “razorpants”. Any unauthorised use breaches intellectual property laws).

Four-thirty a.m., day four of detox; you discover you’ve run out of not only cigarettes, but also sugar. It is now you realise that you are truly alone. It’s intolerable. You’re sure you remember something about this in the UN Charter of Human Rights: No person shall be deprived of a cigarette and sweetened coffee on his or her balcony – especially if he or she is withdrawing from methadone.

            There follows a mad ransacking of cupboards and drawers, searching for the magpied remnants of a hundred hotel stays. Triumph sinks in despair when what you thought was a sachet of honey turns out to be salad-dressing. For a moment you wonder how vinaigrette would go with coffee, but abandon the idea. There are those stock-cubes, though ... no, it’s hopeless; you’re just going to have to go out and get some.

            That Vegemite toast you forced yourself to eat might have been a mistake. This occurs to you while you’re exercising in an effort to spike your endorphin levels. Sometime after the thirtieth sit-up you find you can’t sit-back-down again. You hear a noise like a goose being throttled, and take a few seconds to realise that it’s coming from you – this is because you’re distracted by the fact that your legs have seized-up too.

After an awkward minute resembling something from an advanced yoga manual – or a pretzel recipe – you collapse back on to the rug, catch your breath and steel yourself for your coming shower. You still have some self-respect – some – and before you leave the house you want to wash away as much as you can of the stink of your condition: that broiling meat smell of detox sweat, and the other little pleasantnesses that accompany the male version of opioid withdrawal.

You feel a little better after a shower, the way one might after resting a while on a bed of hot nails. Then your deodorant collides with the histamines storming your body: now you’re going to sneeze – a lot. If anyone has ever actually died after sneezing their brains out, they were probably a recovering junkie.

Pulling-on your two baggiest jumpers and your largest pair of jeans, you’re surprised to find they feel not nearly as bad as you’d anticipated. You’d expected to feel like there were razors sewn into the seams, but instead it’s only like you’re wearing sacks made of echidna quills. Things are looking up.

So, this is what your life has come to. It’s five-thirty on a winter morning, and you’re walking to Campsie – on purpose (That little tobacconist next to the station opens early and you resent paying service-station prices for cigarettes). The night and fog aren’t a worry, though; thankfully the shower has turned your ears into heat-lamps to guide your way. You’re Rudolph the Red-Eared fucking Junkie.

You decide withdrawal-psychosis is kicking in when a possum, attracted by the light of your ears, emerges from behind a bus-shelter. It’s not so much the possum that makes you think so as the fact that it starts talking to you. It may well have something important to say but you’ll never know; you’re too busy trying to ascertain its species to listen to it – if it’s a honey-glider, it might have a stash of sweetener nearby; and, having discovered its stash, you’ll also have discovered its young, which you can hold hostage until it returns with your smokes.

The possum apparently gets your drift, because it darts over the churchyard fence and into the darkness. The odyssey continues.

Having successfully acquired cigarettes, you stop to think about the sugar. Woolworths will be open at seven, but the sun will be up by then. You have to get back indoors before you start melting; nothing for it but to swallow your disgust and pay four times as much at the Seven-Eleven.

Twenty minutes and three cigarettes later you’re back in your kitchen, making coffee with the kind of fervour you once reserved – in similar circumstances – for heroin. It’s going to be so good. You pry the lid off the coffee tin with your teeth while ripping open the sugar bag with shaky hands; you’ll sort out the jar later, no time now. As the jug comes to the boil you bound across to the fridge, fling open the door, and realise you forgot about the milk. Weeping silently, you try to imagine going back outside. Unless ...

Is it possible to milk a possum?