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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1513368-the-tangled-locks-of-starla-stray
Rated: 13+ · Short Story · Other · #1513368
A semi autobiographical slightly dramatized account of a schizophrenic
My heart went snap like the shutter of a camera. In that second time fixes on the moment. My brain is momentarily deaf to the demands of my body and registers faulty.I believe I am dying. I believe I am allready dead. I am cold.

Flashback to four winters ago during my indiscriminate nocturnal roaming about town. Attired in shody shoes with holes, three pairs of socks with holes, two pairs of pants, several sweaters and a coat made of thin unoperative warm looking fabric. Two pairs of holed gloves, and a knit hat with happy cat ears and eyes.
Me, sloshing through the snow and ice for an hour at the least. I stop into an overly priced overly pretentious coffee house for a minute to buy a cup o joe. Outside I remove both pairs of gloves and poor the hot coffe over numbed hands. the hot brew sparkles in the lamp light as it blends with my dark brown skin. Sesation returns hot and moist. I rejoin wet fingers to gloves and begin to walk home.
I am passing a cathedral, looking longingly at a tied plastic bag positioned at the bottom of a short trail of stairs leading to the basement door of the church. I imagined it must have food. I wished I would grab it, but it was meant for someone else.
About this time I begin to realize my gloves had become stiff with ice. The wet coffee had turned frozen making my hands more.....more impossibly numb. I remove the gloves and push my hands into the relative warmth of my peeling coat pockets. My eyes are watering- I think. Unemotional tears have frozen my lashes. In another twenty minutes I am tossing sensationless hands at the door knob of the back entrance to the bed and breakfast I have been living at for the past month.
I lurch up the stairs to my room. Inside I touch blood deprived hands to the steaming heater until I feel the hot. I touch my face then remove cold wet shoes and socks to examine several frostbitten blisters all black. I crawl into bed wrecking with tremors, eventually falling asleep all to repeat the offense the next evening. Yet again venturing out to penetrate the night as a pik into ice.
A heartbeat goes snap stunting time. Did I die that day? Have I been minstrel to my own presumed existence? I imagine i am a ghost I must be haunting you all...

I sigh frowning and put ot the cigerette butt i had picked out of the ashtray. I replace it with a full cigarette from my pack, then shaking my head stub it out to rest. In a moment I pick it up again place it in my mouth, light it sucking and let out the smoke. I need to think and there is no better time than with a marlboro perched death defyingly between my lips.
My name is Starla Lee Stray my incense is Dragon's Blood. My table is riddled with empty cigarette packs. I stack them and watch them fall. What a ridiculous thought...'am I a ghost' Ha! thats a sure sign...I survey my desk until I find a bottle of prescribed anti-psychotics. I take one...the first i've taken in several weeks. The act makes me feel like i have done something for the day.
At the store earlier a woman in line behind me dropped a container of Vaseline. I apologized refering to being sorry for her clumsiness. I had picked it up for her as she stood staring dumbly at the dropped vessel of petroleum jelly. The cap must of popped off because my fingers dipped right into the thick pulp. I gave it to her saying
"My fingers dipped in a bit"
" Yeah" she responded " Im definately getting a different one"
Not even a thank you. What a bitch.
My attempts at deep thought are futile. Hearing a scuffle I look down my dog is getting angry at a petticoat i wore for Halloween

I have been living at home with my middle aged catholic by choice lesbian by chance mother for one year three months. I am twenty-six years old. I havent heard voices in ten months. I wonder where they have gone? I certainly didnt medicate them away.
2....Two is the number of paintings i finished today, the number of packs of cigarettes i can consume in about 28 hours. The number of times I have mistakenly thought I was in love, the total number of articles of clothing I am currently wearing.
2 (if you multiply it by 4) Is the number of cups of coffee I consume a night. My thoughts are raging....





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