Oasis In An Endless Desert

GOING UP: ON A RUSH

...memory escapes him in the wake of paranoia.  "Time is everything, time is nothing; time is all the same.  Another day, another day, another week and another day.  Still I'll check the time again, just watch as the shame settles in."  Dave's trembling fingers reach into his back pocket to retrieve the watch examined only minutes ago.  Seconds tick and tock a sound that synchronizes with the beating of his heart.  Sensing the connection, Dave shudders as a shiver reverberates down his spinal chord.  "Biting frost and body-snatchers linger in the hour.  Two-seventeen a.m.?  Perfect time to unravel the kite."
As he shuffles by the window, fleeting glimpses on the television expose an empty room.  A worn armchair displaying countless years of abuse and stains is all that stands to face the flashing image.  Scattered paint chips line the wooden floor where tears of water descend from a cracked roof.  Dave makes his way into the bathroom flicking on a fluorescent light switch.  Its monotonous buzz radiates off the walls mimicking a housefly in flight.  Unaware of the noise, he opens a mirror door above the rusted sink fixtures.  Contained is a collection of vials, capsules, bottles and tubes which persuade prevailing instincts to take control.  Movements are no longer his own in a frantic search for sensory stimulation.  He clinches onto a small vial and hurries into the other room.  Violent footsteps liberate a glass bottle from its perch causing it to fracture on the raw tiles below.  Dave slouches in the armchair and extracts a crystalline substance from the vial.  Underneath the cushions he removes a torch lighter and a blackened pipe.
Relief, freedom, ascension, escape...

GOING THROUGH: THINKING CLEARLY, MINDING TRICKS

The sun's rays desiccate Dave's ailing body; it's heat left to evaporate the sanity from his mind.  Like a droplet at dawn sliding along a flower petal, shifting sands begin to carry Dave towards the oasis.  Dave can envision this droplet.  Soon, he becomes the droplet and amongst a multitude of drops the oasis forms.  In refuge from the sun's relentless battery, he regains his senses.  The red desert dunes speak a foreign tongue and the emptiness soaks Dave in isolation.  Precarious to the strange world, he rotates his head revealing the reservoir.
On the opposing bank rests a tortoise.  Its soft-scaled tail wades in the open water disrupting its soothing stillness.  A solitary ripple rides across the surface colliding with Dave's exposed legs.  As the wave passes by, the tortoise speaks, "It is but an endless desert that traps us here, forces us to stand trials and tribulations, experience pain and endure suffering.  The desert favours no particular person; our opportunities are equal through its eyes.  Life, you see, is a simple game of hides and seeks on barren grains of weathered rock.  We hide from the unforgiving elements and perhaps even more so seek, seeking the oasis that holds credence in our greatest dreams."
Such a vivid hallucination overwhelms Dave.  He hesitates before his reply, "The words wish and wash away.  Arranged for the untrained ear and consumed by the masses, to them it would appear that I have won your game.  If this is truly my sanctuary, my Eden, then why do I stand detached and unfulfilled?  There's a churning sensation in the depths of my stomach and the oasis dissolves it more."
Quick to answer the tortoise refutes, "Your perpetual, self-destructive shortcuts to a temporary refuge only fuel the fires that devour your state of being.  Transcend your addiction or perish in its flames."
"I'VE ALREADY PERISHED! Every time I try to run away across the sands, I surrender to my horrors and fears.  I can't bear my desolation, but they always bring me back to the oasis in an endless desert."

GOING DOWN: DOES IT EVER STOP?

Harsh pains waste Dave's lungs as he attempts to crawl out of his armchair.  The energy slips past his body and onto the floor.  "Like some sort of liquid bleeding through the wooden boards.  Whining and waning; droning and fading.  Leave my decisions for a silent jury and listen to their hurried sighs."  A sudden coughing fit unleashes black-hearted despair on Dave's reality.  Keeling over and breathing heavily, blood trickles down the wrinkles in his dried-up lips.  Internal battles wage to regain the strength required to drag him to the sink.  In front of the mirror he lifts himself up and peers at the face he does not recognize.  "Does it ever stop?"  Dave fills the sink with warm water and plunges his head into its seductive heat.  Holding his breath, he remains submerged until the bubbles burst from his mouth, rise up and disappear.  Dave emerges from the bathroom emitting a lifeless stare from the center of his eyes.  He takes a seat in the worn armchair and retrieves his pocket watch with a shaky hand.  "Two-thirteen a.m."  He waits in silence.  "Never does it stop."
Drained, empty, fearful and hungry for more,...