After The Glitter Fades.

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each chapter is named after the song that inspired it - includes how 'The Tears' was written.

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Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me – Roger Daltrey

Contents

Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me – Roger Daltrey

reality hits…
I arrived at his apartment, and hammered on the door. I didn’t care if he didn’t want to see me, I had to see him! I called out to him, “Noel? It’s me… please, please let me in! I have to see you! I need you! Noel? NOEL?!” I slammed my fist against the door in frustration, and it swung open with a rattle. Noel never left the door open, what was going on?

As I entered his apartment, my feeling that something wasn’t right was growing stronger by the minute. There were clothes strewn about the floor, amongst empty bottles of vodka and little blue packets, and the whole place stunk of smoke. Clearly, he had been living a similar life-style to me for the past few days.

I heard something snap beneath my foot, looked down and saw a shattered glass syringe. I shivered. Noel hadn’t taken acid or coke in ages, but he had never, ever injected before.

“What have you been doing to yourself?” I wondered aloud, pausing to kick aside a rumpled t-shirt, revealing yet more empty bottles and packets.

“Noel?” I called out again, my voice faltering slightly as my panic rose. I began frantically running down the hall. I flung open his bedroom door, but he wasn’t in there. I burst into the next room, the lounge, but there was no sign of him. I continued on my frenzied search through all the rooms in the flat, calling out his name all the while.

Suddenly I stopped. I stepped slowly up to the bathroom door, and turned the handle.

“Noel! I know you’re in there! Come out, please! Please, I have to see you!”

“Just… leave, Julian.”

His voice should have been such a relief to me, but it sounded awful. It was husky and cracked, with none of the enthusiasm he usually emanates, or even the attitude he has when he’s pissed off. It was straight, matter-of-fact. It gave me a shudder.

I slammed my body against the door, desperate to get in. On my third attempt, the hinges trembled, and on my fourth, fell out completely. I tor the useless door out of my way and threw it to one side.

What I saw will be burned into my mind for eternity. Noel was there, naked, lying against the sink, looking directly at me, but his eyes weren’t focussed. He looked deathly pale, even whiter than normal, but his face was expressionless. I couldn’t understand what was happening for the first few seconds, why he was lying so still, looking almost dead. Had he overdosed?

Then I saw the blood. A great pool of luminous scarlet, clashing against his whiteness. It was pouring out of his wrists as his arms lay flatly by his side. What had he done? At first I couldn’t see anything but the man I love slowly bleeding to death before me, and then I saw the razor blades lying next to his outstretched hands, and I realised. The image swam before my eyes as I felt my head swell with burning tears, turning everything into Technicolour, where the white and the red burned my eyes with their intensity.

I could hardly tear myself away from the horrific image of him lying there for a moment, the thought of leaving him there on the bathroom floor made me feel sick, but I had no choice. I turned and rushed to the phone in the hallway. My hands were trembling so severely that I could barely punch the numbers in. 999.

“Hello? Yes, I need an ambulance right now! Flat no. 7… 7! 7, Camden High Street… What? It’s my… my friend! He’s… he slit his wrists… I… He’s dying….” I couldn’t say anymore, I broke down in a shivering mass and let the receiver drop down next to my shaking hands. I could just make out the woman on the other end saying they’d be there shortly.

I staggered back to the bathroom and gathered his body up in my arms. His breath was coming in rattling gasps, and as he slowly turned his deep blue eyes to look at me for the first time, they seemed to have a little less light in than usual. The innocence and happiness were gone, and they were coldly staring in a way I’d never seen before. It tore at my soul. What had happened to make him do this?

I gazed down at him, and bent low, sobbing almost incoherently into his neck “I love you, Noel, I love you! Don’t leave me!” I no longer cared if he didn’t feel the same, he needed him to know how much I loved him. He looked up at me through the black hair which was sticking to his moist forehead. He mouthed something, and I leant in close to hear him. I buried my face in his sweet-smelling hair and breathed in deeply. Tears cascaded down my face onto my chest, my arms, his hair, his face. His perfect face. I trembled as I thought that I may never smell him again, never taste him, never hold his body against mine like I would never let go, never gaze deep into his beautiful eyes and see them boring back into my soul with such intense emotion that it was hard to tell whether it was love, lust or fear.

He whispered, barely audible, “Ju… I love you.”

Barely audible, but I heard him.

As he finished the last gasping word, his eyelids fell shut, and he began breathing shallowly. I felt as though his soul was slipping through my outstretched fingers as the blood seeped from his open veins. As I held him, I swore could feel his spirit passing through me, merging the two of us into one entity.

“Take mine.” I whispered into his chest. “Please, God, take my soul and give it to him, but, Christ, don’t let him die!” As I sobbed out this desperate prayer to a God I’d never believed in until now, I could felt his body going limp, his beautiful soul trickling away, leaving me crouched and trembling on the bathroom floor, clutching the body of the love of my life, my tears merging with his blood in a rapidly growing pool beneath us.

His unique, feminine smell was fading away to give way to the lingering smell alcohol and smoke, and I felt like I was fading away with it, every emotion in my body draining out with my tears, until I was sure I was nothing more then an empty, hollow shell. He had always been the light and warmth in my otherwise cold life.

I clutched hims head to my chest, shaking uncontrollably.

“Don’t let the sun go down on me.”

I can’t light no more of your darkness,
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white.
I’m growing tired, and time stands still before me.
Frozen here on the ladder of my life.

Too late to stop myself from falling.
I took a chance and changed your way of life.
But you misread my meaning when I met you,
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light.

Don’t let the sun go down on me.
Although I search myself it’s always someone else I see.
I just allowed a fragment of your life to wander free,
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me.

I can’t find the right romantic line.
See me once and see the way I feel.
Don’t discard me just because you think I mean you harm,
But these cuts I have, they need love to help them heal.

Don’t let the sun go down on me.
Although I search myself it’s always someone else I see.
I just allowed a fragment of your life to wander free,
Cause losing everything is like the sun going down on me.

Don’t let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it’s always someone else I see.
I just allowed a fragment of your life to wander free, to wander free,
Losing everything is like the sun going down on me.