Dreams

The hiss spits from the match as the sulfur tickles the nose right before the match flares into being. Eyes half lid against its birthing but all settles down to a dim halo accenting the flame. There is light. I share the match with the lone candle set atop the nightstand but the shallow glow it adds does little reveal much more of the room. The walls, they remain in the dark. I don’t think I’ve found the door yet but I haven’t looked either. It’s there. How else would I have gotten in? Gotten to the bed? These ideas linger with me in their innocent novelty. There's no thought given to having come here or when. The room, I don't remember coming in or why but there's no sense of concern about that. I'm here, seated on an unmade bed, and everything has the sense of familiar.

Shadows crowd the room to dance in long, exaggerated motions against the candle's light and I lose minutes watching the show. The dull wash of color drifts across an endless backdrop of black, striking a clear distinction of borders between the two. I fix on points where the shadows make lazy forays into the light. In slow motion the candle sputters, spits, and the flame chases off those inky fingers. The scene is repeated as far as I see. To as far as the yellowish light slides out. It's everywhere. All of it ceaseless motion where I can only see what feels insignificant against that which I can't. I should feel intimidated by that, by what might be out there just beyond sight, but I'm not. This isn't why I'm here.

The nightstand is a small, rounded top that doesn't leave space for much else besides the candle. That's ok. I don't think I need much room. The case I have is pretty small, like something you'd use to bring your tooth brush on road trips. It unzips down the center to open up like a book. The feel of its worn leather reminds me of those personal bibles children get on Confirmation. The ends are heavy. They flop open and stay put allowing me to remove what I need from the velvet lined insides. I've never done this before but I know exactly what I'm doing.

I give a slight bend to the handle of a stainless steel spoon before setting that atop the table. The balloon I pull from a pocket is red, tied at one end. Carefully I bite down through the rubber and tear away the knot. Nothing is spilled. The normal faint vinegar odor of the drug inside holds a hint of sweetness and the coffee brown clumps I pour into the spoon make sense. This has been cut with brown sugar, not the talcum powder I expected. I'm not sure why I assumed it would be white or how I'd know this. Inside I have no questions. No anxiety. I continue with the motions as though this were my own ritual, my communion. I could have done this a thousand times already; my actions are just that natural. But this is my first.

There isn't need for much water and I don't overdo it. Just pour in enough. Already the clumps break apart and begin to dissolve. I use a glass eyedropper with a rubber squeeze bottom to add the water. I'm aware that this isn't common, that most people simply use the needle but that seems flawed to me. Unclean. It's not part of my process. I don't need to do much mixing. Just a little, stirring slightly with the dropper's tip. With that done everything is set aside while I reach down to pull a shoelace free from my untied boot. I roll the short sleeve of my left arm up to the shoulder, wadding it tightly in place, before wrapping the string high around my forearm. Once around. Twice. I yank down hard so it bites into the loose skin.

The syringe taken from the velvet bed is an antique. A glass tube held by polished silver. It's heavy in the way you expect any object of age to be. Somehow I'm reassured by that weight and metal. I screw the hollow tip in position, watching the candlelight reflect along the ornate metallic base and sides. There is only a single open ring to work the plunger. It reminds me of a man's wedding band for some reason, although I can't recall ever knowing a man who was married. My thumb slides through the hole while the needle's lower body is supported between the index and middle fingers. Slowly I draw back my thumb, sucking air in before reversing the action to gently force it out. No clogs. Everything is clear. The syringe is laid back down.

Ghost vapors coil up from the bubbling mixture that cooks in the spoon. The scent appeals in a way I didn't expect. In slow, tiny circles the spoon's base passes over the lick of flame. Why I'd bent the handle earlier makes sense. My hand isn't even with the flame; I don't get burned. All of the tic-tac sized lumps dissolve away totally before the spoon is put down to cool a little. Not too long, of course. Don't want sediment to form so I'm quick to pull the filter off an unlit cigarette and unwrap it to get the stiff cotton inside. Filter like this doesn't require any extra time rolling that a cotton ball would. I drop it into the solution, watching as all of the brownish liquid makes it expand a bit. Now I move fast.

The needles' tip pokes into the filter's center as I draw back the plunger to suck in the liquid. My teeth pull the shoelace around my arm tighter, the veins strain and spider across pale flesh in a patchwork of light blues. Mentally I choose my mark along the arm's bend while placing the warm tip flat against the skin. This is the tricky part. This is where most people fuck up, but I know what I'm doing. With a steady hand I push the needle in and feel it bite through the mild resistance my body gives. I shudder, knowing I'm afraid of injections, of needles, but finding this all second nature. I'm good at this and feel a hidden pride in that. Now, carefully, I pull the plunger back a bit further and watch the glass tube as I do so. A quick cloud of crimson blossoms in the mixture, sending tiny legs of red cascading down to settle. Perfect. I'm in the vein. The wait, the preparation, the ritual, it's all done. A final time I pull my head up and away, feeling the string tighten, as my fingers hold fast to the syringe and I glide my thumb forward without stopping.

I don't know how to explain the feeling adequately. There's no longer anything around me. No bed. No light. No darkness. No needle. I can't process time or tell how long I've been feeling like this or when it began. My whole body is alive. There isn't a part of me I don't feel; that I'm not completely in tune with. Its as though every inch of my being has orgasmed at the same time and I've been frozen in just those brief dying seconds where nothing else in life ever mattered. All I want, all of me just wants to keep feeling exactly as I do right then. I think this is how love should feel. My entire self swims in that. Blanketed in this private affection. I could be falling right now. I might be flying. What if I've never been alive before? What would I be if I were never born? Thoughts as simple and as random as these drift in an out of my conscious mind and strike me as being deeply profound. I'm brilliant. I'm beautiful. I don't ever want to stop feeling like this.

"None of that is real, you know?" The voice comments in a whisper from just outside of the light's reach. I adjust myself on the bed's top to look out in that direction. Nothing.

"It's as real as anything else," I respond to the dark. My eyes flutter shut to enjoy the rhythm of breathing. "This is how I want to feel. This is how the person I want to be feels."

"They're just illusions. I've had a lot of time to think about that. When you're young, when we were younger, we spent too long in the worlds we built. I went to sleep a dreamer. I'll never know how the story ends," the voice continues on, now walking in a slow semi-circle just above my head. Still out of sight. I don't open my eyes. I don't want to see him. I don't want to hear him talk.

"I don't have any regrets," I say to him without even trying to hide the fact that I'm lying. "We did what we did, with what we had. But that's a different life. Another time. If you were here now I'd tell you that. I'd shake you and tell you to wake the fuck up. That we were wrong in so many ways. I've learned so much since then. I want you to know that." All of this makes sense to me but it comes out rushed. I'm lost. I wonder if he can even understand a word of it. He still thinks I'm crazy, I bet. I want to tell him how much things have changed. That my entire life is different. That I grew up. That he would have grown up too if he had just stayed awake. I don't open my eyes. They grow hot with tears I choke back. The thrill is dead.

"I know," he says. I can practically feel that trademark smug grin of his. "You can stop being a pussy. Don't ever let me see you cry again." A hand gives my shoulder a squeeze. My head rolls to his touch to try and lay my cheek against his skin. I want to feel him. To know he's actually there again. To see my friend.

"Now wake up....."