Fragment #1 - A Hangover

It was about noon when I was rudely awoken by my mail falling on my head. This was the first indication that last night had been a good one, the fact that I could actually feel my liver, and the inside of my skull was the site of what seemed to be an illegal rave were convincing arguments. The final stamp on this matter was that I was fully dressed lying just inside my front door. Dear reader, it is with real shame that I admit to you that this was not what could be, in any way, described as a dignified position to find myself in.
I staggered through to the kitchen removing my jacket, this of course after the usual hangover ritual; Attempting not to vomit when sitting up, inspecting the groin/arse area to ensure that at no time during the night I had lost bladder or bowel control, counting my teeth and saying to myself with no real conviction that I would “never drink again”. So, I'm now in the kitchen, trying to focus on all the important things like staying in a more or less upright position while reading my post.
Letter one of three: This one wasn’t so bad, just the Inland Revenue, they were merely informing me that I needed to pay a few hundred pounds or I would be putting my state pension at risk. Looking about myself, I see empty wine bottles and beer cans, pizza boxes and curry tubs, countless bags once full of terrible terrible drugs and the nigh on finished pack of twenty Mayfair, bought early this morning if what I read on the receipt I found in my pocket is correct. No sir. I do not think that I will really be in any position to use my state pension when the time comes.
Letter two, Oh what Joy a council tax bill. I'm not sure if it was mild alcohol poisoning or the shock of seeing the balance I had to pay Glasgow city council, sure enough it had been a while since I bothered with giving them anything but this is ridiculous! Thousands of pounds, I've only opened two envelopes today and I have enough reasons to spend the rest of my life on gods green earth chowing down happy pills in a home for the bewildered. Waiting in anticipation for those long days in sedation.
Okay, letter three, deep breath and slowly count to ten. It was my occasional and usual employer, here I summarize: The magazine in their infinite wisdom have decided to commission ten thousand words from me for two months time, but in their shameful pedantic and rather childish nature they seem to question the validity of the expenses I claimed this month.
The fact is this month had been a moderately honest one for me, normally I really put in some effort into screwing the bastards for all their worth. In my trade you need to have a good imagination, this does not mean that you make up entire stories off the top of your head, its usually only about 50% lies (25% plagiarism, 15% useless filler and 10% whole-hearted truth), no the real great work of fiction is in the expenses and this is where I went wrong. When you start being honest about money you end up in trouble. You know what they say about no good deed going unpunished. So now they’re cornering me into writing an article for them at normal pay… Minus last months expenses!
I made myself another cup of precious coffee and went through to my living room, making sure I did not step on the antiquated curry box on my way. Sitting down I have a ponder about this article I am being blackmailed to write. Ten thousand words on the American prawn industry. Spectacular! This is a bad one for me, first of all, it sounds really, really boring. It also has the nasty vibe about it that it could be fact checked with ease and therefore actual work. I had a plan to pretend that I'm dyslexic and write something about the American porn industry, which would have required a lot of research on the Internet. But no, it was a silly plan, they would just not pay me and I'd still owe them money.
I'm sitting on my couch in my reverie of semi-catatonic despair when I'm startled by someone phoning me. Who could it be? My solicitor regretfully informing me of his inability to represent me any more due to the legal action he was carrying out against me? I dismissed this notion quickly; I got that call on Tuesday.
I decided to pick up the phone, not without a serious sense of foreboding. It was my sister and she sounded upset.