Smoke and Ashes

SMOKE AND ASHES




He swallowed his last pill, and chased it with a long slug of tap water. The pills were the only things keeping him sane. If he didn’t take them, he couldn’t relax, and if he couldn’t relax he couldn’t sleep. And that’s when things began to go wrong.

He sat back in his favorite chair, the arms worn with age and marked with countless cigarette burns and stains from coffee and alcohol. He waited for the pills to take hold of him. He tapped his fingers against the ripped fabric, drumming them, always in constant motion. He never stopped. He was kicked into full gear now, and his condition was getting worse.

He switched on the television. Flipped endlessly through hundreds of channels of drivel. The home shopping network, a drippy late night sitcom, nature channels, a rerun of the X-Files, and countless more he couldn't name. Finally he felt his grip on the armchair relax, the fingers fell slack. His eyes drooped as his head connected with the headrest. Then the dream came. The same one he had every night.

Corridors, empty except for him, the exit lights glowed red against the darkness. He was pacing, up and down and back again. He could hear nothing but his own breath. In and out. Up and down. He was like a treadmill turned on overdrive. He ran, first slowly then gaining speed, and when he reached the wall he pushed off and ran again.

He felt heat that started in his midsection. It spread to his arms and his legs. He ran faster. There were white figures transfixed inside the walls, their ephemeral figures flitting angrily. They appeared and then disappeared, falling through solid brick as if it were butter.

Suddenly, churning waves of flame leapt from his body as he ran. Fire pulsed and exploded outward. The wind fanning the heat as it consumed him.

He gasped and sat upright in his chair. The pills had worn off and he was awake again. This time it might be forever because the doctor had cut him off. The thought of living without the sanity of sleep made his hands clutch reflexively over the empty prescription bottle on the table beside him.

He threw the bottle on the floor, and it fell with a plastic clatter, rolling and then settling in a corner to collect cobwebs. He jumped out of the armchair and felt the familiar buzzing in his brain, the jerking of his muscles as the restlessness settled in to stay.

He began his morning pacing.

He threw open the window, hastily sucking in thick bursts of hot summer air. The sun set and rose again. The phone rang seven times, but he couldn’t bring himself to pick it up.

Today was the breaking point. He knew this. He could feel it like a muscular tic. He shuddered with barely repressed fear, the lack of control over his body and mind was absolutely maddening.

They would come for him. He could already see them, straining at the bounds of his reality. The air was thick in his apartment. All of the windows were open but there was not a single breeze.

Another night fell, Sunday night. The phone rang eight times. It anchored him to the reality that existed outside his window, so he let it ring. He couldn’t face the voice at the other end, not in this state, this free-floating chaos. The jangling of the ringer was a discordant melody that forced him to race faster across his small apartment.

He hadn’t eaten the entire weekend. He sustained himself on a steady diet of cigarettes. He lit one now and took a deep drag, the smoke billowed out of his nose and mouth. That was when he saw them. Hazy figures, showing up translucent in the dissipating smoke. He threw himself on to the chair in shock but it melted underneath him. He fell to the floor with a loud smack.

He looked around and his entire apartment was stark bare. He screamed, and it echoed. The sound bounced off of the walls with nothing to dampen them. He was sweating. The cigarette fell to the floor, a long line of suspended ashes, that he didn’t remember smoking.

He began to pace again, and he felt resistance, an invisible barrier when he went too far to one wall. The space in which he marched began to get smaller, and smaller, until he was only taking two steps in either direction before he was restrained again.

They were going to take him! He screamed in his mind, pacing his two small steps, feeling the pressure that kept him from moving. He couldn’t avoid them this time. He didn’t have his pills, his body was running on nothing, no sleep, no food. This was the final stage.

There was a sudden sharp pain behind his eyelids, and one of the shadowy figures touched him. There was an instant of white, blinding cold and then the hand released. He cried out, clutching his arm. He tried to watch all four corners of the room with only two eyes, his head rolling back and forth like an out of control jack in the box.

His head collapsed in on itself, and he was falling backwards. They caught him in their arms and he froze completely. He was a piece of ice statuary, frozen in his bedroom with a grimace on his face and his arms caught in mid flail.

The phone rang again. It was at the other end of the room. He stared at it, wanting to pick it up, but he couldn’t take another step. He couldn’t breathe, each gasp was a needle in his throat. He could see them more clearly. A flash of white teeth, a spindly arm, a grasping hand. His answering machine picked up. He didn’t remember turning it on. He heard the voice, but it was tinny and far away.

The Doctor! He tried to scream. But no words fell from his lips. Send someone. Send someone now! But the thoughts were cut from his brain by a fisted hand. He saw it come down, felt his body break. Heard the crackling sizzle as he fragmented like a thousand tinkling wind chimes.

Before the pieces of himself fell, before he was swallowed by their grasping mouths, he swore he heard the mournful wail of sirens.


*****Please take the time to r&r, I would greatly appreciate your help in making my writing better!*****