Saturday
Phil was dying for a piss, too much beer at the match, and now he desperately needed a quiet alleyway to relieve himself.
“Just a mo’ Al.” He said to his mate. “Need a slash.”
He ducked down a side road away from the throng of fans streaming away from the ground and looked for an opening between the old rundown factories, there just ahead on the right. He would have missed it against the strong sunshine but he had his new sunglasses on, well cool designer shades, and he could see the narrow dark gap. Slipping into the musty darkness between the buildings he had to put his sunglasses back on his head to see in the gloom. Something brushed past him as he stopped to unzip his jeans. For a moment he looked around in startled surprise but he couldn’t see anybody. He gratefully let the stream of piss play down the wall and run away to who cared where.
“Ahhh.” He sighed, flicked off the last drops and did his flies up again.
Going back up the passageway he stepped out onto the street, no one else around, and walked back up to the steady stream of fellow fans as they crossed the end of the street. He dropped his sunglasses back down into position and then lifted them. It was odd. When he had the sunglasses on everything about him looked, thinner, no wrong word, paler, no still not right, translucent. Yet raising them all appeared perfectly normal. He shrugged, maybe an effect of the glasses, they had some special coating as well as polarising lenses.
“Arait Al.” He said happily as he rejoined his mate who was leaning against the wall sucking hungrily on a cigarette. “Comin’ t’ match next week?”
“Ent gowin’ t’be ‘ere.” Al said a tad aggressively.
“Gowin’ someplace?”
Al looked at him sourly but didn’t answer.
“Hey I kin sub tha, got some cash.” Phil volunteered.
Al looked at him as though he was mental, then shook his head and took another drag on his cigarette.
“Comin’ aht tahnait ?” He asked Phil.
“Where ?”
“No place special, got some WKD.”
Phil licked his lips, WKD was well tasty, he could get a bit drunk but not so much as his folks would see.
“Yeah, cool. When?”
“I’ll be in while eight, half past ina park.”
“Cool.” Phil murmured and they parted ways as he took the road towards his house.

Inside he could hear the TV and looked round the door.
“Hi Clare.” He said to his sister as she sprawled on the sofa watching some kids programme.
“Hi Phil.” She answered without looking round.
“Wasson?”
“Nowt.” Clare said dully but she still didn’t look away from the screen.
Phil still had his sunglasses on and the TV looked hazy, insubstantial, until he took them off and it looked as bright and sharp as normal. Phil backed out of the door and stood in the hallway, that didn’t seem quite right.
“Hello luv.” His mother said from the kitchen. “Good game?”
“Nah, nearly lost it. Lucky to get t’ draw. Playin’ was crap, need us a new manager.” He replied dismissively and hung his red and white baseball cap on the hook by the door.
“Tea in twenty minutes luv.”
“Grait.” He responded but without any enthusiasm, his mind was filled with the image of the TV, oddly hazy.
He went upstairs into his room and flopped on the bed trying to forget it, he pulled out his phone to send a text to….to anybody.
“Ah shite.” He muttered, he hadn’t remembered to get a top up and he was out of credit.
He dropped his sunglasses back over his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, it didn’t look right, there were dark strips across it.
“Gotta be t’heat.” He murmured.
Getting up off the bed he looked at himself in the mirror, he looked pale; he took off the sunglasses, he still looked pale. He was still staring at himself when his Mum shouted up the stirs.
“Tea Phil.”
He jerked out of his dazed self contemplation and slowly descended the stairs, it all seemed so substantial beneath his hands but he just couldn’t get the sensation out of his head that it was somehow less solid, less real. The food seemed even more tasteless than usual, but the act of eating it calmed him down, steadied his world, beat back the waves of unease that lapped insidiously on the shores of his befuddled brain. Then he joined his Mum and sister in front of the TV and watched some mindless doc drama filled with improbable accidents and ER angst in equal measure. At its end he checked his phone, time to get off and see Al.
“I’m away.” He said to his Mum.
“Okay luv.” She answered with a smile and turned back to the TV where another series of failing celebs were facing death by popularity poll.

At least the heat of the day was fading he thought as he walked towards the park and a few bottles of liquid oblivion. Al had already put one away when Phil slumped down beside him and he twisted off the cap of a second bottle of dayglo alcopop.
“S’all shite.” Al muttered by way of conversation.
“Tha’s in a rait good mood tahnait.” Phil laughed at him.
“I mean it Phil.” Al growled. “Look atit.” He repeated waving his nearly empty bottle at the tatty vista of the city. “S’all shite an’ its all gowin t’ hell.”
“I’ll drink tah that.” Phil said with a grin and took a long drink of the sweet liquid.
Al looked at him oddly then reached over and poked him in the chest.
“Gerrof tha gay.” Phil laughed and pushed his hand away, Al was in a strange mood alright. “How many tha had?”
“Not enough, not friggin enough.” Al groused to his now empty bottle and tossed it aside to open another and half empty it in one long drink.
“Tha’re pissed.” Phil told him. “Can’t hold tha booze.”
“Pissed, yeah I’m pissed. Pissed at all this…this Shades!” Al said loudly.
“Wassat? Shades?”
Al gave him another searching look, squinting at him in a very disconcerting manner, then staring off into the distance, drinking, steadily drinking.
“Tha ent much fun tahnait.” Phil rebuked him coldly.
“Fun?! Seven shittin’ days Phil, that’s all t’ fun we got.”
Phil felt distinctly uneasy at the pronouncement; he didn’t know why but it had the ring of dreadful truth about it. What would happen in seven days time?
“Seven days in Shades.” Al muttered. “Sick friggin joke that is.”
“Wass this Shades Al?” Phil asked him with a very real tingle of fear.
“Don tha feel it? Its all gowin’, fadin’, fadin’ to nowt. Shades Phil, Shades don’ last while seven days.”
Phil didn’t want to hear that, he didn’t want to believe it, he didn’t…. he took a long drink to finish the bottle. Savagely he tore off the top of the next and drank again, seeking that fuzzy warmth, seeking drunken oblivion, seeking ignorance. But he couldn’t get it out of his head; Shades, he was in Shades and it was fading. He pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. He looked at the city and it was already hazy, translucent in the strong evening light. He turned to Al and was horrified to see his friend was becoming as spectral as his city; only his hand seemed solid when he brought it up in front of his face.
“Wass happenin’?” He demanded weakly.
Al raised his eyes from his bottle and they focussed on him.
“Tha ent fading Phil. Why ent tha fadin’ basstard?!” He raged at him then subsided back to his contemplation of his bottle.
“I ent fadin’.” Phil repeated the statement and grasped at it like it was a life buoy. “I ent fadin’.”
“Won’t las’ while seven days.” Al murmured sourly. “Tha’s still gowin’ tuh hell like t’ rest of us.”
They sat together but alone, drinking steadily until both were wrecked and the bottles were a sad heap around them. Overhead the clear night sky should have twinkled with stars but it was a bilious orange haze that only a few sharp points punctuated and it was whirling, it was all whirling in Phil’s head.