It's Not

Anonymous

Black.
My stomach churns like a raging sea. The water laps and sprays in tossing waves, the wind fierce and powerful, shaped by some churning force.

The train lurches to a stop, sending an acrid spit of vomit into my mouth. I swallow hard, push the awful taste back into the depths.The fuzzy intercom mumbles a name. Last stop. I open my eyes to the burning florescent lights of the subway with my head still dizzy from the ride, my gaze falls upon the sliding doors. People gather and spill out into the exits, I wait till they peter out before following.

The outside air chills my runny nose, I shuffle forward through the sidewalk desperate not to make eye contact. Another rehearsal towards my daily routine. I edge forward with the shared motion of the stream, trying to stay out of focus, mashed together with the sea of blank faces.

With two blocks left to go, my mind begins to slow. Hardening into stone and seizing up my chest. I slowly sidle my way to the wall of the storefront and duck into the next available alleyway. I walk to the edge of the dead-end with some false purpose. Reaching into my breast pocket, I feel around for the glass bottle. With my middle and pinkie finger gripping the neck, I use my thumb and forefinger to remove the cap.

I close my eyes tightly and shoot it into my mouth. My lips embrace the glass, half swallow the neck as I chug it down until the warm air of the empty bottle fills my tongue and I toss the bottle to the side. It clatters and echoes with no one but myself to hear it. I feel around my back pocket and grab the second mickey, bust open the cap for a sip. I begin to feel the fog start to leave and the clenched muscles release.

The shelter is a converted school gymnasium, a meaningless expanse defined by endless rows of cots and the stench of exhaustion. I place the bottle and my jacket on the cot and rest on top of it. Perched above like a mother hen over its eggs. Meager valuables really but the only treasures left, the last sources of comfort left.

As I close my eyes and hope for sleep, idle thoughts wander along some distant shore. I’m missing something, something valuable that I once lost. Something so sacred and dear that the loss was like losing a limb. Stolen or lost, the specifics scatter in my dreamy state. Groans and creaks of shifting cots become white noise, noticed but not registered. It was gone and nothing felt the same ever again.
Sleep.

Every morning begins the same; an unfamiliar fog. The groaning and shuffling of the bodies surrounding, wake me up, the people and the setting alien. The difference erupts a series of memories: of kisses on the cheek upon waking, of the welcoming smell of coffee, of soft slippers scraping against the carpet.

All this only furthers my morning ritual. Mostly I just want to forget, to move on out of this shit hole and off to somewhere else. But where? Everything used to be easier, thoughts ran clearer and spoken aloud to a receptive soul. The first drink gets my motor running with the third drink making me feel like a fuck up. It's the fifth that drives me out of the YMCA, out the door in search for it.

With the bottle nearing empty, I eye the street and count the bottle shops. It’s better to just pocket one from a shop a week, keep a low profile. Constantly shifting from one to the other is safer. But gazing along the street, I realize that I’ve hit them all in the past couple of days. I need a drink. And there's nothing else to do but walk.

I start asking people for spare change as I move along. The usual hustle: for the bus, for the subway, for some food or coffee, or maybe I should say 'I can’t break a hundred.' Most ignore me, some spit, some hand it without eye contact then speed away. All do their best to avoid touching me.

It’s been an hour and my feet are killing me. I should change these shoes but you’ve got to hang around the place all day for a good pair. The donations go fast. I’m somewhere on the east end and some of it starts to look familiar but I’m edgy now, starting to get the shakes. I see a depanneur at the next corner, yuppie condo territory though. I'll probably stick out pretty badly there.

Walking in, a loud electronic bell rings as I enter. The cashier starts eyeing me, sizing me up. I fake an interest in the magazines, noticing the booze at the far back. Making my way slowly, I pick up a can of soup, the one dollar and sixty-eight cents jingling in my pocket. I take a quick look around the bottles, the Southern Comfort at the bottom of shelf; perfect.

I drop the can of soup and quickly place the bottle into my waistband. I take a look at the can, dented. Oh fuck it. I put it back on the shelf and start to walk out the store. I'm a metre to the door before the cashier starts up.
“Hey you!” He yells.
I continue walking as if it was someone else he could be talking to. But he must’ve hopped the counter because I suddenly feel his hand grip my shoulder. Feeling his fingers dig into my collar bone, I turn around.
“What you didn’t think I’d notice?” He yells, his hot breath washing over my face. “Fucking bums, I mean you guys…. You really think that you can just… Oh my God…. that you Craig?”
I don’t answer. I just avert my eyes and feel my body go limp.
“Jesus Christ man, I heard about Ellen and everything. I’m so fucking sorry but what are you…. What-” He sighs. “Just take it man. Just take it and go.” He lets me go and returns to the counter, not even bothering to look at me.

I don’t even bother to look around; I take off the cap and just start chugging. It hits my legs first, every step like walking in water. I wander south for a while until I find the subway station. Making the way down, I keep my eyes to the ground, my mouth closed even though the smell’s unavoidable. I drop all my change into the slot and quicken my pace descending down the underground. Onto the train signaling its departure.

Each step shifts with the sand, slowly swaying my body to a dripping vertigo. It’s colder now, the wind is stronger and the sky a dull gray. The wind pushes through uninterrupted, no one else but me to push around. I’m carrying the bottle loosely in my hand, trying to keep my eyes open as I take another long swig.

This was it, wasn’t it? This was where it happened. Even the setting is the same, all tossing waves and piercing winds. This was where I realized that I hated her. I hated her soft blond hair, I hated her dark green eyes, I hated how she would always ignore the hand offered and just swallow you with a hug. This was when I hated what she did to me. Her and her stupid cancer. All those hours holding her hand and pacing in some shoebox hospital room.

Those stupid ashes and the wind moving around me in all directions. I could barely let them fly, the wind swirling them in the air and refusing to land gently, stray ashes clinging onto my overcoat.

Watching her change, change without me, watching her leave me. All I could do was watch. Watching her waste away to bleached bone. This was where I realized how much I hated her. When I tore the ring off my hand and threw it into the river as hard and as far as I could. My arm was sore for days afterwards.

And now here I am again, trying to find it.

Paul

The car lurched forward with the pull of the emergency brake. Paul remained sitting there, hesitatant. The view from his windshield was all too familiar. The cloudless night laid before him, there by the highest peak of Richmond Hill. The great ocean of stars shimmered in the infinite sky and it remained as always an awesome sight to him.

Whether it was the end of spring with the summer just over the horizon or the beginning of fall with the winter ahead, the view epitomized the moment. Except this time, alone in his car, it didn’t bring the usual sense of comfort. Instead it brought a sense of dread.

Paul lit a cigarette, knowing the meeting ahead would only bring consternation if he lit one in front of her. He smoked it fast, spilling ashes all over his jeans. When it reached the end, he was kind of relieved. Relieved at the opportunity to finally leave this view.

Walking swiftly down the paved path, his shoes squeaked on the wet grass while Paul did his best not to slip on the sharp slopes downward. Past the jungle gyms and into the wetlands, he veered off the path. Darkness swamped him with a step, the hill he was to climb casting a massive shadow. As he made his way up, the tittering of voices became clearer. One was a voice he questioned whether was real or not. The voice he had dreamt of hearing again but still thought he never would.

Finally reaching the summit, he rounded around the apple tree. Paul made a greeting to the two girls perched in their own little hideaway. Bonnie got up first, recognizing it was Paul.

“Hey.” Paul croaked.
“Hey, yourself. I was beginning to think you were never going to show.” Bonnie said, getting up. She gave Emily a long hug. “I'm going to stalk you if you don't stay in touch!” She said with a beeming grin.
Emily returned a wan smile. It failed, a mere stretch of facial muscles.
“You two take care of yourselves now.” The last word became distant as Bonnie disappeared into the darkness.
Paul laid down on the grass beside Emily. Flat on his back with both of his hands resting underneath his head, Emily always hated that. How he could just walk into any kind of situation and act like it was all so natural. She kept her back to him, allowed herself to get transfixed at the view before her.
“So.” He said.
“So.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“And what else is there to say?”
“Hey, I’m not the one who disappeared without a single note or anything. I’m not the one who just left to god knows where without even… even a glimmer of-”
“And here comes the melodrama.” Emily shot back. “I mean where else was I going to go?”
“Oh please. I mean for all I know you joined a convent or the Church of Scientology. Do you not care at all? Is that it?”
“Paul… you know how it is. How things are.”
“And what, just leaving me in the cold is the sensible solution.”
“I don’t know.” She swayed her head but couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I don’t know, it just seemed… easier.”
“Easier?!” He yelled incredulously.
“I don’t know ok, I don’t know. What do you want from me?”
“How about a ‘Dear Paul, I'm better now. Good luck at university tomorrow.’ I thought that that would at the very least-”
“Don’t be like that Paul.”
“Do I even mean anything to you?”
“Wow, Paul way to just skip right over the small talk.”
“Yeah well, we were never much for bullshit small talk. That’s what made us, us… at least that's what I thought. Now I don’t even know what to think.”
Paul could feel it all threaten to explode out of him, he tore his eyes off of her and looked back at the night sky. Unable to find peace there, he turned back to her just as she began to speak up again.
“Yes Paul, of course you mean something to me but what good does that do us? What good does that do us now?”
“Well as consolation prizes go­­­­­” Paul couldn’t even bring himself to finish his sentence. His head hung low, shaking in disbelief.
“Don’t do that. Don’t make everything into some stupid joke. Not now, not like this. God, I can’t believe you and Bonnie would ambush me like this.”
“She did it because she cared. She’s not the only one leaving tomorrow and she’s not the only one that’s been frozen out of your life since February. I mean, it’s a scary time. High school’s over, we all got all this new life ahead of us now. God knows where I’m going.”
“You’re just moving four hours north, Ottawa is a city you know. The country’s capital?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But you know what I mean, there’s more to a place than the latitude and longitude. It’s a new city, a new school, hell practically a new life.”
“And isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Who the hell knows?”
They began to notice the silence around them until it was broken by the chirp of a lone cricket.
“So what was the reason for this sneak attack?” She finally said.
“Well isn’t it obvious, I already said it.”
“I mean really. You know it. You do know that I wish you the best and all that.”
“I don’t know, I guess I wanted... closure? Yeah, some closure, some wild public sex, you admitting that I’m a god among men. Stuff like that.”
That same old stupid smirk, Emily thought. When they were just getting to know each other, she just wanted to smack it off his face yet somehow it became endearing. “But what’s left to say or do? You’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Yeah well maybe it's not about what we say or do but what's left to be said and done, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah... and... the view’s not the same without you.” Paul managed to confess, remaining motionless. Lost in the view of the looming moon, Emily turned and faced him. It was odd to Paul: how he could still feel her gaze on him. How her doe eyes rested on him as if returning to an old house and rediscovering a childhood bedroom. But she turned and faced the tree again.
“Yeah, I have that kind of effect.” She muttered.
“Ha, ha.” He said flatly, “since when did you become the jokester?”
“Well a lot happened during that time apart.” It was true, it must’ve been true for Paul saw the last several months worn on her face.
“We’re not that different though.”
“Yeah, I guess. You’re still Paul and I’m still Emily.”
“Oh yeah, it’s not like we had sex changes or anything.”
“Oh no…”
And suddenly Paul flashed back to grade eleven and that Religion class they had together with the teacher with the thick Eastern European accent. All mangled English and stilted pronunciation. Was that gone now? Would that fit into their new lives?
“I still drink my coffee black,” Emily continued. “Though I am changing my tune on Ryan Adams, the Smashing Pumpkins, most of Grunge music and we all know what a big commitment that is. So naturally-”
“We are cracking wise now are we?” He said with his best impersonation. She broke off into a laugh, that same old laugh Paul never knew he missed so much. With her face lighting up the sky like fireworks. “Too different though?”
“Oh c’mon Paul! We just had a good thing going.”
“Well I’m sorry but I just… I just wish I had some kind of answer.” He shook his head in frustration. Comfort be damned, he thought. He searched his pockets and lit up a cigarette, not really sure as to whether he actually wanted one or if it was just to annoy her. “It’s just that everything’s changing.”
“Everything’s always changing.” She said with a coldness he never heard before. “Everything's always moving, shifting, changing. I mean, were we ever on solid ground?”
“No…” He sheepishly admitted. “But there were some good times, Valentines?”
“What you slipping e into my drink?”
“Hey you were having fun! It’s not like I took advantage of you or anything.”
Emily loved his squirming, his attempts to get his sentence out while trying to restrain his face from bursting into laughter. She remembered now. “It’s not so bad now though. You’re going off to school and I’ve only a month left at the hospital… and I’m ready, I’m ready to go back and finish school.”
“Yeah,” he said in a far off voice.
“Don’t act like you’re not excited.”
“I am. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t. But… it’s just hard to ride off into the sunset when the damsel’s still tied to the railroad tracks.”
“So I’m the damsel in distress?”
“No, not you.”
“So you're the damsel?.”
“Ok, it’s you but it’s not you…It’s, it’s about me and you. The damsel is us.”
Paul took the chance and felt that quickening beat, the blood beating through his veins, his heart leaping, and he leaned in. She saw his lips and felt his invitation. Closer, closer, but she withdrew.
“Paul please… I-” Emily said turning away.
“Oh god, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He said burying his head into his hands. “I’m that guy now, I hate that guy.”
“What guy?”
“You know the guy who can’t take the hint.”
“No, no Paul. It’s just… I don’t know. It’s just looking out at this moon, this view, this horizon… It just shouldn’t be about the past.”
“Yeah, not like there wasn’t a hint there.” Paul felt the heat of the cigarette burn closely to his fingers and held it out before him.
“You smoke too fast.”
“I double inhale.” Paul said as he stubbed out his cigarette carefully. Watching every flaring ember dying out as it smothered into the earth.
“You didn’t even finish that.”
“What can I say? I don’t like the ends.”
“Psh, like I didn’t know that already.” A smile began to widen her face, that smile Paul loved but rarely saw.
A fog started to form and surround them. The heated earth against the cooling sky. Their view began to be obstructed, as did their view of themselves.
“And how is the hospital?” Paul asked, looking up at her as he was seeing her again for the first time.
“It's not bad... all the nurses are too cheery and there's a chant. The whole thing feels more like a summer camp for basketcases.”
“A chant?! Oh god you have to tell me what it is!”
“No... you're just going to make fun of it and it... it means something to me.”
Paul store at her expectantly, his eyes excited with his trademarked smirk. All that Emily could never deny.
“Well... it's a chant ok? It's pretty stupid and...” She began to waffle but just the sight of Paul wore her down. “It's 'healthy weight, healthy weight! We're not going to puke it all away!”
Paul burst out into laughter causing a chain reaction with Emily.
“Ok, ok... that's enough out of you.” She said, trying to restrain him.
“I'm sorry but it's really... you know when you expect something funny but it still hits you right in the gut? Harder than you were expecting to be hit?”
“It's a chant ok? I know it's campy, it's stupid...”
“Yeah campy chants are bad enough but how exactly does one make an non-moronic chant about eating disorders?”
“But the whole process, the whole stay has been good to me.”
“Well I'm glad!” Paul said finally simmering down. “And to be honest... I do understand, I understand why you had to leave. I'm glad that you're good now.”
“Good is still a ways off... but thanks.”
“It's just the way you left you know?” Paul said this in an unusually low voice.
“I know, I know....”
“Were you with me just…”
“What?”
“Just to have a boyfriend. I mean was it just better to be with someone, anyone, ie- me; rather than being alone?”
“Oh yeah, like I was such a social butterfly before…”
“I know I know. I just… need some confirmation I guess.”
“Paul, we were both fucked up. I was fist fucking my mouth even when I wasn’t even eating, you were doing lines every fifteen minutes. We sought each other out.”
“And that was it?”
“No but that’s how it kind of began.”
“So I’m not an obsessive freak.”
“Oh that you are,” she quickly shot back. “But it is flattering to be chased.”
“It wasn’t like you weren’t chased before? Wasn’t there… Fred or something? Straight-shooter, honour roll whore…” Paul lit another cigarette, drawing a disapproving look from Emily.
“We got each other, Paul that's all it was.”
“Like a special connection?” Paul whispered.
“Yeah.”
“So it wasn’t all just in my head.”
“No, it was a relationship but based on what? That we didn’t judge each other? That we cared enough to only watch? Watch as we slowly killed ourselves?”
“It was more than that and so much more. I know it, I knew it existed. I mean you were always so cold but then there were those small moments when your face blushed tomato red and I knew. That’s why I slipped that e in your drink, it was February we were both so low, so frigid. I did it to get you to open up and you can’t say it didn’t worked.”
“True but it still wasn’t right. You could’ve asked.”
“Would you have said yes?”
“That’s not the point. We were supposed let it happen on its own.”
“Well that’s kind of hard to do when you’re monosyllabic.”
“Still…” Emily felt his voice rising, the words being flung out. She hated this, that indignant argumentative side. How he always had to be right... And now, here it would begin. The ninety-nineth argument for the ninety-nineth time over the same tired subject and how he would-
“I know, I know. But it’s not like I didn’t try.” Paul admitted.
“You pushed yourself too hard, it all happened too quickly.”
“Well you were so out of it. It was all deer in the head lights.”
“How should have it have gone then? It was only six months.”
“I don’t know. But it was a connection damn it and it should’ve felt natural, I was pissed. Not at you but at me.”
“And it was just like you to do that. To take the shortcut instead of building something, something real.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t have gone to the hospital if I wasn't like that?”
“I don’t know.” Emily let out in naked whisper. “But what ever we had, it is what it is and it was what it was.”
“And that's it?”
“That's it.” Emily ran her hand along the grass, each drop of dew clinging onto her outstretched fingers. “They teach us- the labcoats, they tell us to accept what is. Those things we can't change. And the past is one of those things. We can't change it- all those little ways we let each other down. And you're-you're here! Trying to do... what?”
“I just want to figure this out. I just want to get all these damn thoughts, these damn doubts out of my head. I loved you.”
“I did too.” She said under her breath. She store at him hard. “I did too.” She said again, forcefully.
“So just how did I screw it up? Fuck it up in my old fucked up way.”
“It wasn't you, it wasn't me, it was us.” She pressed her cheek hard into his shoulder then softened, leaning her weight onto him. “It just didn't work out. But...”
“But?” He said, his voice rising at the end, expectantly.
“But it was still a lot of fun.”
“Yeah it was, wasn't it?”
“It was nice to have someone there. A punching bag, a wall to lean on, a warm body to hold...”
“So it just didn't work out?” His voice because weak, as thin as mercury.
“Yeah. But what's the point really?”
“The point of what?”
“The point in admitting this, in talking all this out. No matter what we say or do, you're still going four hours north tomorrow and I'm still checking back into the hospital. What do you expect? How could we expect anything different?”
“But I still do you know, I still think-wish-want-”
“We've made our beds...”
“Ok, but... goodbyes count is all I'm saying. Just saying it... hearing it.” His voice wavered at the end and the silence of the night surrounded them, not even a cricket stirred.
“Remember that time we went for that walk by the stream?”
“Yeah, you were all paranoid about those power lines.”
“Hey, all that high voltage at subatomic levels travelling faster than light-”
“Yeah, yeah I know. Cancer and brain rotting, all that from the smoker.”
“Well all I remember is when we reached the pond.”
“Yeah, it was concrete grey from all the construction run off. Silvery, it looked metallic that morning with the fog and the sun buried under all those clouds.”
“It was something, it was special. For the first time, I felt like someone got me. We talked all night and then we went for a walk-”
“And out of nowhere, you just went and kissed me.”
“It was electrical.”
“I was there,” she said with a smile she couldn't contain.
“And what was that? How did we let that slip away.”
“I don't know, I don't know about human relationships, what ours was, or how special it was and whether... whether it was really...” Emily trailed off, not sure where her words were leading her.
“So you're asking... basically... what is love?”
“Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more,” Emily sang in an exaggerated voice. She turned to register his reaction, not quite sure how to read his face anymore. “What? Too obvious?”
“Oh yeah... but I never understood this whole falling in love business. It's just a moment, then it passes. It's supposed to last but we change, people change. Aren't we supposed to change together?” Paul asked, his voice suddenly hard.
“And you're basing all this on what?”
“On us, on our friends, on our parents, on our friends parents. It's all either divorce, dominance, comfortable lies, or even worst... stuck together because they have no where else to go. And so much more. On what I want,” he looked at her hard but she broke the shared gaze. “What I wanted.” He finished, quick and low.
The silence returned just as the fog quickened. Emily relented though and found herself laying beside him on the dewy grass.
“You know I liked you since the first time I saw you.” Paul said in an attempt to shift the sand.
“Really? You didn’t even know me.”
“Like that halts the lust of teenage boys.”
Emily blushed and moved a strand of hair from her face.
“But seriously,” Paul continued. “You were this paradigm of virtue. You even wore your school uniform in perfect code, honour role; everything I wasn’t. That’s why I was so attracted to you. That’s why I flipped your skirt that time,” Paul remembered with a widening face. “But then I got to know you more and what do you know? We were more alike than we ever thought… It should have worked. It must’ve… It was the perfect relationship.”
“Oh we were far from perfect and you know it.”
“I know, I know… but perfect for each other.” The words sounded heavy in the wet air and they both remained silent, viewing the words in front of them, measuring it. “You remember grade nine science?” Paul continued.
“Yeah, when you clapped your hands to get the teacher’s attention like she was a dog or something on the first day.”
“Well, I can’t snap my fingers and the room was quite rowdy-”
“Doesn’t mean you should’ve done that-”
“Well she should’ve had a better handle on her classroom-”
“And you’re pro-strict teachers now are you?” Emily shot out in a devilish challenge.
“No, no… My point was that, I was in college science first…”
“Yeah and then you changed to University Science with me and now you’re going to University…”
“No, I changed because… I looked across the hall and there you were. You in University science and I in College science…”
Emily blushed and let out a short laugh. “You were always very sweet.”
“Well, I try to eat right,” he said quickly but returned, “but if it wasn’t for that, if it wasn’t for-”
“Don’t, don’t finish that sentence.” She begged, she looked around for some exit but then she knew. She knew she had to say it: “It might’ve been a relationship but based on what? Not on love, more misery than anything else. It wasn’t love. We were together and nothing else.” She said this as their hands slowly crawled together.
“Do you think that maybe… in another world?” Paul replied, his voice wavering losing the forceful nature it usually contained. He felt her body turning towards him.
“I think in another world: Gore would’ve lost the popular vote but won the electoral college, Yoko would’ve been the saving grace that kept the Beatles together, and Christina was a slut first then went teeny-bopper-”
“You know what I mean,” he said his forcefulness returning.
“We’ll never know. In another world, we might not have had our problems and never have been attracted to each other in the first place.”
“Ok.”
They laid together sharing their warmth, slowly falling asleep.
“Final awkward question: was it worth it?” Paul asked, feeling her head rest on his chest, feeling her hair on the tips of his fingers.
“I don’t think either one of us can answer that.”

And what more could they do or say? Having frittered their last night away pointing out the stars of past mistakes, they remained huddled together. In a tight embrace, in the face of a change that was as inevitable as the end of the night and the coming sunrise.

Johnny Fuck Up

I don't recognize the image in the mirror until I hit that twisted smile, I see it all explode before me like fireworks. The water is cold, making my hands white. The smell of mothballs hang thick in the cramped washroom with the flourescent lights burning into my eyes. I keep my eyes on the mirror, trying to ignore the smile. I have no idea what I am look at.

The door opens behind me and snapping me back into place, I make a quick exit. The restaurant is noisy and full. I feel my hands quaking and I slip them into my pockets, rounding around the tables before finding mine.

The family leans back on their seats, bloated and full. I scan the circular table and try my best not to make eye contact.

“Do you have to leave so soon?” My mom asks.
I nod.
“Do you need a ride?” My brother asks.
I shake my head, taking my cell out to check the time. “My ride should be here soon enough.”
My dad nods and says, “well if you need a ride, just call.”
I nod.
They get up and gather their things, I follow them out.

“Good job paying the bill,” my mom began rubbing my ear first before stroking her hand along my face. “I could get used to this.”
I nod.
“Try not to drink too much,” my dad says.
“Never do.” I say with a grin.
He shakes his head and walks off.

I light a cigarette. My brother stays with me and lights one of his own.
“You sure you don't need a ride?” He asks.
I shake my head.
He waves and walks off to his car.

I finish the cigarette and take my cell out to the check the time once more. I feel weird, my body humming and alive with the air cold against my clammy skin. I feel a charge running through me, electrifying me, making me feel alive but sickly.

I light one more cigarette and the car pulls up, lights from the neon sign washing over the black metal, black tinted windshield. The passenger window rolls down leaking some new New Wave crap.

I nod and get in.

“Been awhile man,” Ken says.
“Yeah.”
“You ok? You look kind of pale.”
“Yeah.”
The car jerks forward as it rounds and leaves the parking lot. I stare out the window. The city always looks different every time I come back home, new buildings providing an endless facelift. The drab concrete recedes to reveal polished steel and glass. It wasn't that I like it or dislike it, it's just new. The scenery seems textureless, like you didn't really see the building just a shiny reflection of yourself looking at it.
“I saw you on TV.” Ken says.
“Yeah.”
“What you only talk when there's a camera on you?”
“Among other things.”
I push the button and the window rolled down, I toss the old cigarette out and light another one.
“I liked your old car better,” I say.
“Heh, you're the only one.” He says.
“You know, the haunted car.”
“It was a bitch to drive, the engine would always cut out remember?”
“It's cause it was haunted.”
“You have no idea how many girls would ditch me just because the windows would roll up and down automatically.”
“That's why I liked it.” I put on my Wayfarers. “It kept you on your toes.”
“So there's going to be a lot of people tonight.”
“Yeah.”
“You excited?”
“Meeting all my old friends from highschool again?”
“Yeah, the old gang. It's weird when I think of it.”
“How so?” I ask.
“How we all got legit somehow.”
“Legit?”
“Yeah like you, especially you.”
“Well the more things change, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess. You still don't drive and I still have to drag your sorry ass everywhere.”
“Yeah.” I say.
“What's with the sunglasses? It's night, you gonna shoot up the joint or are you expecting paparazzi?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, what?”
“The lights get too bright.”
“We're going to a club.”
“Yeah.”
“It's kind of creepy actually.”
“What?”
“Those glasses are so big, it's like they're eating your face.”
“I hear that's a good look at clubs.”
“It's weird not looking at your eyes. You have this stare when you talk, you look straight on.”
“And that's less creepy?”
“No, it just made you seem... intense.”
“Well I don't like doing that anymore.”
“What? Looking people in the eye?”
“Yeah.”
“But it's what you do.”
I place my left hand over his on the gear shift and say, “well I never knew you cared.”
He shakes me off and laughs.

The club was throbbing, the bass blunt like a hammer banging away, sending shockwaves along the wall. Ken quickly saw someone and lifted his hand, I move past him and head straight for the bar. I stand beside it and feel the urge to bury my face into the plexiglass counter. I want to drown in a bottle.

Someone taps me on the shoulder. I keep my eyes forward and don't bother to look at him.
“Been awhile man!” He says.
“Yeah.”
“Well check you out!”
“Yeah.”
“All those years in a Catholic uniform, white collars, ties, and pleated pants, and here you are today; white collar shirt and black pants.”
“Yeah.”
I don't recognize the voice and I keep my eyes forward. I keep my eyes on the bartender, moving around, grabbing random drinks, trying to avoid the mirror over the rack of bottles.

I nod to get her attention, point to the Heineken beside me and when she gets close, I yell for two shots of tequila. She looks at the guy beside me yelling into my ear and nods.

“Hey remember,” he continues, “that law teacher. What was his name again?”
I chug back the beer until I think I'm going to choke on it. She comes back with the shots, I pay and she moves along.
“Yeah, Mr... Mr something. You always made a funny joke about it, what was it again?” He looks at the two shots and pats me on the back again. “Thanks man!”
I down them both, keeping my eyes straight. Staring at nothing, staring forward at the rack of bottles in front of me, staring until they all blur together and I can't tell where one bottle begins and the other ends.
“Yeah, well...” He continues. “MR MITTENS! Yeah that was his name! But it was pronounced, Mit-ten. You always said that sounded like a pet name or something, like a name for a cat. That was funny.”
I finish my beer.
“And man, he was always so uncomfortable!” He continues.
I move my eye back to the bartender, waving my hand.
“He would begin every sentence with, 'um...ok,' and you made a game of that. Every time he did it, you were like SNORT! Man you were crazy. You were doing lines right on the desk.”
The bartender finally notices me and brings me another beer. I pay and walk away.

I'm only a few steps away before some girl sidles along beside me, resting her hand on my shoulder and shouts, “you having fun tonight?”
“Always could be better.” I shout back.
“You need something?”
“Always do.”
“So what do you want?”
“I don't know... what do you have?”
“E, pot, meth.”
“Meth,” I say. My voice sounding surprisingly small.
“WHAT?”
“METH!” I yell back.
She nods and waves me to the hallway leading to the washrooms.
“How much you want?” She asked.
I empty my wallet and hand the cash to her. “This much.” I say.
She empties out her left pocket, counting eight, nine, ten dime bags. She hands them over.

I walk away and head straight to the washroom. My legs feel weak and my feet are sliding around the wet slushy floor, I go into the first stall I see. Reading: OUT OF ORDER.
Some guy knocks on the door to warn me, I ignore him. Some other guys laugh.
I empty out an entire bag, taking out my health card to grind them out. It's been so long in a way but the muscles in my hand don't seem to have forgotten, the right amount of pressure to keep the card down, the right amount of pressure to move the rocks around to break them up. I do it a few times until it's fine powder. Seeing I had no more cash left, I threw my head in and snorted.

I walk out of the washroom, head spinning but heart racing. I get a few steps forward before someone comes up to me.
He slaps my shoulder. “Hey man, long time!”
I nod.
“Really long time.”
I nod.
“Shit man, I haven't seen you since highschool!”
I nod.
“Fuck, you disappear off to bumfuck nowhere and now here you are!”
I nod.
“I heard you wrote some book, all about the crazy shit you did in highschool man.” He leans into my ear, as if I couldn't hear him. “That's cool!'
I nod.
“That's fucking messed man. But shit, you were on like tv or something right?”
I start to really feel it. First the music sounds too loud, then the room starts to move, and then the lights get too bright. I take off my glasses.
“Shit man! You look like you're balling again..”
I nod and feel myself say, “no.” But he doesn't hear me, nodding along.
“Hey man, you should really try and take a shot.” He says.
“Round here, we all look the same.” I say.
He gives me a weird look and I shrug.
I walk away, away from his weird look. I go back to the washroom.

Walking out of the stall, I catch myself on the mirror. Dirty fucker up to his old tricks again, I think. And I take off my glasses and see the shiny new surface on my face. I turn the taps and run some cold water over my hands, I keep them there until they turn red. I splash some water over my face and grab some paper towel, rubbing it in to dry. And in that flash of darkness where my eyes are closed and I feel the paper scratching against my face, I see it as it really is. The scars that are still there, running too deep to ever go away.
I go back into the stall.

I enter the dance floor again. The strobe lights are in force and every blink reveals the room. The same skinny pale people frozen in movement. All looking the same, dressing the same, and doing the same drugs. And I stare inro the crowd hard, I stare until they all start to the blur together and I don't know where every one of them end and I begin.

I get out of the club, stumbling along the sidewalk in a frenzied walk. I can't stop staring at myself off every store window reflection. I see myself in every shiny surface, I see myself reflected in every shiny glass and steel.

And I see a truck barreling toward me, I walk out in front of it. Opening my arms to embrace it.

Tulip

The family left, leaving behind a blaring bouquet of flowers. This assortment of feverishly bright hues, this assortment of Violets and Orchirds blazing against the dull sterilized white of the walls. They scream at me. Their voices flood the room, make their way through the hallways in an unending echo, haunting me wherever I go. Reminding me of the parents and sister I leave behind, demanding that I get well soon.

But I can't wrap my head around it. Something doesn't click.

It made perfect sense. The school year was over and I was in-between looking for housing for the coming school year and waiting for my marks to come in. No promises made, nothing to hold me back, nothing to hold me down. No commitments would have been broken.

A nurse enters and moves some things around, I turn to my side and try to resume my line of thinking. It's been so hard lately. She adjusts my IV and slowly things begin to make even less sense, finding myself slipping into numbness.

And the only thought that does make sense is the one that has me in this place, something unfit for public consumption. There were no tethers then, there are tethers now. There was nothing then, there is something now. Nothing but myself. I could just go away, do whatever I wanted. Go to the waterfall and lean my head in, let the air carry little drops of water to my face. Open my book and get lost in the words.

But the thought came back like the way it always does. So I took my pills. All of them. And chased it down with some scotch. With my eyes half open and my movement sluggish, I placed my wallet at the top of my books inside my backpack and zipped it back up. This way there would be no confusion. I wanted to sleep and let that be that.

Now I'm here with these flowers staring back at me. A reminder of all I need to live up to. A constant reminder of all I've done wrong. The sheets holding me down like chains.

My hand is greasy, smelling of some bland moisturizer. My mom had gripped my hand tightly at first then loosened as I turned my head opposite from her and store at the wall. It was my father doing most of the talking. Pacing around the room, doing laps from one wall to the other, over and over. They want answers and I can't give one to them. Not one they'll accept anyways.

And so they left flowers.

The labcoats ask me about my feelings and I’m frozen in amber. I just don’t know what to say really and I don’t know what’s worst: telling them nothing, telling them a lie, or telling them the truth that despite it all, I still feel trapped and guilty.

Guilty that I’ve allowed this to happen, let this creaky barge slip underwater. Guilty that I’ve allowed this routine of days, hours, and minutes to continue, over and over again. And it’s all my fault. Mine and no one elses.

If only I could come up with the words to describe it. To explain myself to these roaring flowers, to give something other than this meek muted whisper. A humble and clear explanation to justify these actions, the choice not to give up and pack it away but to show them that quiet emotional affirming image at the end of the film. Something: an arrangement of words, a picture, an act; anything, fucking anything.

But nothing comes, only the same feeling of resignation. The story had ended and the conclusion had been reached, I look at everything now and it feels fake. No not only fake but a lie perpetuated to mask something real. Something pure, some sort of truth.

And the truth would bring no comfort. No epiphany, no explanation, and no empathy. The words clang like church bells: it's simply not, it's not enough. No matter how hard I try or how far I go, it's just not enough. It's not about failure nor success, it's not limited to selfish indulgence or cries for help; it's beyond action and surrender; it's not, it is simply not.

A moving image appears and quiets the mind, usually ignored, where people get up and leave; and now the only thing left.

THE END