Hank has always loved experimenting with new things. When his friend Thomas invites him into the Kuwaiti high school's bathroom stall to try heroin, he somehow knows it will be the mother of all new things. Once Thomas pricks his skin and lets the drug fill his veins, it is like love at first sight for Hank. But that first hit greatly affects his life for some time to come-addiction eats away at his soul. It impacts his personal life and marriage and even threatens his very existence. Hank wonders if there will ever be enough of the drug to fill the void. Facing blood, overdoses, and circumstances of raw fear and the unknown, he has nothing else to lose but the heroin that he craves with every breath; he lives in excruciating pain of separation from the love of it. Hank uses his pain to his advantage and realizes that simplicity, principles, and befriending himself offers far more opportunity than he could have expected.

Divine Innocence

By Hammed Al-Tamimi

Abbott Press

Copyright © 2012 Hammed Al-Tamimi
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4582-0663-3

Chapter One

The First Hit

They are batteries, our souls. No one knows how long they last in each body. Sometimes, when at the end of its life span, we bite the batteries or put them in the freezer for a bit, just to squeeeeeeeeze what little life they have left, and these are just batteries. These souls are put into our bodies to last and endure. We hurt and blame, we sin and feel shame, and we smile and love. I am selfish, as I am in charge of my own fate, but I set blame on life, time, or circumstances. I feed my battery poison, but it still goes on. In the end, or let's say in the beginning, it's our bodies that deteriorate, not the battery. The battery goes on and carries with it all aftertaste of death and hatred and sins.

Mercy and forgiveness start here. And there is a witness to it as well. When feelings and emotions are raw and pure, the beginning is where innocence is at its peak.

* * *

I should start with something magical to get you in the mood of it all, maybe whisk you away into the realm of color and bliss, maybe walk you through a phase where everything around you goes quiet and everyone is frozen. I should explain the sound of heartbeats in freeze mode and open your eyes as you walk into my world.

Unfortunately, my world isn't a beautiful landscape with fresh greenery and light-blue skies; the sun doesn't shine as it would in a peaceful world. It's best I just stop with my attempt at an introduction and simply show you. But first a warning: if you have a weak heart, close your eyes and ears and hope the pillows around you keep you safe from what's deep inside. The elements creep within the confines and staggered structure of our brains.

A nostalgia rises from within the bits and pieces of your remaining soul. A craving so deep that each cell of your body has needs ... the bent spoon, black underneath from the lighter, and the brown leftovers like little grains of dark sand huddling together. You take out the filter of your cigarette butt, slice off just enough cotton, and then put the filter back into the cigarette—it will be the first cigarette you smoke right after.

The heroin is a small hill in the spoon. You pour a little water into it, cook it with your lighter, just enough to hear the water frizz and boil but not so much that it evaporates. You see the brown hill dissolve into the water and become a dark-yellow liquid. When you put your filter into the spoon, you see it suck up most of the liquid. You take your needle and pull it all in. You bend the cotton onto the point of the needle and squish it so that no liquid is left. Suck up every single drop.

I love this part. This is what I anticipate the most: sticking it into my veins, pumping it in, feeling the hot mixture of heroin and water mix into my blood, waiting for it to reach my heart.

Then, there it is. I feel your heart become warm and fluffy. Sinking deeper into your soul, the sweat stops dripping from your forehead, hands stop shivering; your mind goes into a trance, deep into a black hole.

Time stops. Everything gets quiet. You are between the worlds of reality and nothing. All the elements around you vanish. This is the moment I crave.

* * *

Smoldering me with its huge bright arms of heat as we were walking around the neighborhoods, shining on everything so brightly, it seemed as though nothing could hide from the hot rays of the sun. What amazes me is that I wasn't breaking a sweat, not one drop, which is kind of a big deal for me since I tend to sweat from everything and anything.

Sometimes I wonder how a country as small as Kuwait is able to handle this much sun, as if the land has a constant craving for scorching weather, grains of sand that burn at your feet, and dry air that could stiffen your tongue.

We stumbled upon an abandoned house on the corner of the street, nothing but dirt all around us. I would actually be amazed if anything green was put into my sights; how could anything live in such immense heat anyway? I looked at my freakishly tall cousin, a hint of a smile on my face as I squinted because the bright light of the sun was hindering half my vision. I could see him looking down at me with a big smile on his face.

"We found it!" he said as we skipped toward the house.

We weren't actually looking for that abandoned house. We were just walking, for no reason; being teenage boys, we had nothing better to do.

We went into the house, and I felt a sense of relief. The burning sensation on my head, face, and shoulders went away. I guess the sun can't creep into everything, and there are such things as dark, damp places hidden away from light. We vandalized what we could, breaking windows, peeing on black concrete walls, picking up rocks and jokingly throwing them at each other, without even caring that one of us could actually miss and accidentally throw a rock into one of our eyes. I guess that's how it goes when you don't feel responsible for anything.

"Ha-ha, Alex. Stop! Do you still have the cigarettes we bought yesterday?" I asked. "Give me one. I feel like smoking."

I actually didn't feel like smoking; honestly, I just felt like rebelling, being a bad boy, which is what made my heart pump. It was a feeling I had that every time I did something I wasn't supposed to, a void between my body and my soul got filled. I didn't even understand it.

I thought maybe everyone in the world was born with a little nothing in between and had to fill it with something to feel complete.

"Yeah, sure," Alex said, sticking his big hands into his baggy jeans. He pulled out a flip top box of Barclays along with a tiny green lighter.

When we finished smoking, like little children do—just filling our mouths repeatedly with dull, repulsive, numbing cigarette smoke—we started to leave as if someone or something was watching us.

There it hit us again, the smoldering heat, which made me close my eyes for a second as I looked away from the sun. I almost tripped on a white metal box we hadn't seen earlier. First we laughed as if it was hilariously funny to be clumsy. Then we stared at it. The box had red writing diagonally all along each side: Warning: Highly Flammable!

Alex took the green lighter from his pocket and tried to ignite the intense fumes coming out of a small hole on the top of the box. We didn't actually know what it was, and all I could read was the warning on the side. He repeatedly tried to light his lighter so close to the hole, but the flame kept on flicking off. It was exactly the same as when we put out the flame of a candle by blowing it with our lips.

"Give it to me, stupid," I said with a grin. "You're not supposed to light it so close to the hole. The fumes are keeping the lighter dormant, unable to breathe."

"Ha-ha!" Alex laughed sarcastically and shoved the hot sweaty lighter into my hands. "Let's see how you do it."

* * *

I do not know exactly what happened next. I do remember lighting it, and there was a small explosion, a breath of fire like I used to see on TV coming out of dragons. I could feel my right hand holding my left wrist tightly, as if suffocating it. I tried to look down at it; I wanted to put a visual on the aching sting of my left hand.

But I couldn't. I tried focusing. I could see that we were running. I could feel my body's heat from within. Looking through my eyes was like looking through a windshield. It was as if I was trapped inside my own body, wanting to take care of what I assumed...