Trison

I could feel it. The ‘Qak’ is slowly infecting my blood cells. Infusing into my body, my brain, my entire being! It feels so good. Sitting in a dark alley with trash cans, mice, and ashes was my only witness to the fresh blood. New-blood. ‘Qak’. Ooh, the slow burn. So good, god, the perfect lover. I can watch the pod-stir slowly melt into my vein. It’s beautiful and sensational, sensations. fuck, if only you could feel it, absorb it, and become part of its love. Partly, orgasmic in the relaxation, and euphoria, the pleasure is entirely there. Soon, I’ll fall into a slumber, and my med-card will scream out its beeps, and Medies will come, and cut open my suit for CPR just for me to throw up and surprise them with life. “Stop, please.” The more compassionate Medy will say, then climb back into his ‘Carter’ and fly away. With their alarms blaring to push through the traffic.

It binged, the Pod-sir finished. It’s all in me now. Burning into my foundation, my cells, and matter. There’s nothing more… just this. This special Eden planted on the back of faithless Lucy. The world’s shifting tones and warmth. Leaning against a trash can, the alley opening was to my left, and I could see the colors of the smoke streaming from the ‘Living Towers’, are brighter and tapped with an underlying, ever-enchanting, orange.

Of shifting and rotating layers. That is what the world is. Shifting lava and magma. One layer floating as a rock on a superheated-concentrated bullshit. One dip into it and you’ll call yourself stupid. Lord, I miss that stupid motherfucker, the one who dove in after my dog after the bitch jumped into a hot spring. Lord, I can see him now. Waving at me, gesturing to me, ‘Closer’ he whispers, I want to go closer I tell him. But, I can’t. Something is keeping me from you, from them, all of that. I can’t say goodbye. “Good-bye, to all that,” he muttered, muttered, muttered, muttered, burning hot, lava flowing through my veins. A love that is baking itself into my psyche and matter. Love. Love, so much of it.

The cushion on my office chair has already been worn out. The same is true for the leather. Rips in it expose the yellow, sponge, cushioning of the chair. Its guts spill out whenever I sit on it too quickly, throwing its matter onto the ground, to where one of the boys would clean it up, while I do whatever it is I do. Typing. Typing. Typing. Writing. Writing. Writing. “The disorders of today are and will be, caused by disruptions, corruption, and vices of the past. However, thus to say, that there is a path that we can currently take…” Blah. Blah. Blah.

It’s just me right now. In the office. All the other cubicles are empty, it’s just my overhead light that is on right now, and my boss who can’t leave without a bad conscience if he leaves someone else behind. I think it’s his way of staying grounded. That, and the policeman outside, the one that always stands at the front door, wouldn’t allow such a thing to happen, he’ll say that it ‘goes against code-fuck-you, under section-fuck-me-in-the-ass’. It’s always fun to stay over-time, despite me not getting paid for doing so. It’s fun to sit back on my rotting chair and look at the cork ceiling. Looking to the side of the bright, circular, modern, light. The types that dim and change color with a remote.

“Shut the fuck up, and give me the fucking boren. I already fucking paid you.”

“Fine, Nik. bitchass.”

Grabbing on her ass. Think her name’s divinity or some shit. bitch, better feel good. The music in this place is so shit, but the booths and purple lighting make this shit worth it. Good meat too. The ones that dance. And the ones you eat. God’s got good taste.

“Don’t wanna leave? Too scared to die?”

“Hell, yeah, bitch… nik or some shit.”

“Poor little baby, you okay? What’s happening at home?”

“Nothing bitch, get back on top.”

“Got yourself some witchcraft that makes the noose fit bad? Huh?”

“Get on top, bitch. Let me latch on too, I’ll pay extra. And pass the fucking bottle, sell. And Sing That shit!”

“ I don’t know where I’m going but I’ll end up in your arms. Smart goes crazy, those are the tides of some wack smack. Hold onto me, go along with me, disappear into my heart, and fit the part.”

I could feel the vomit slowly traveling up my throat. Its fingers catch the back of my tongue. Burning the edges of my heart as it claws its way up. Hooking onto my uvula as I reached over to the party table, as she started to sit on my lap, eating the boren and downing it with her spit.

The colors of her shift and shit. Blue and black. Black and blue. Black in the thighs. Blue in the eyes. Eyeshadow and liner. Bruises and make-up. Splattered and splashes of red rainbows on the walls and her. Flashing LED beams show off the dust and dirt in the air.

In a booth, I sit and drink. Divinity went away. She’s throwing up somewhere. ’Least she rushed off like she was. The small circular, party table is straight ahead of me. With my feet on top of it, with everything pushed off from it. Spilled shots, boren, and Pod-stirs. There were no windows, so one large digital clock on the dance floor showed us what the time was in bold, red letters., “5:48 AM.” It was large enough so that you could see it no matter what. And no lights could drown out its red, only blood matching it. People were strung on the floor. Laying like starfish and absorbing the after-night glow. There was a light hue of purple in the air. Everything was becoming less fuzzy. That’s when I took another boren, a brownie with a cocktail of fuck-all, and ate it. Sticking the needle of a Pod-stir with the label of ‘Qak’ back into my vein.

Fire. Lava. Burning all over. I can feel every blood cell combusting within me. Blowing up and destroying my organs in the fire. I can feel the love that fuels the being that is me. That is thy self of something, something, holiness! Love. Fire. Burning. At the core, is the density of all! Layers and layers make up the whole. 1 layer of rock. 4 of lava. 1 of density. That’s all you are. You are what made you. You are what you are. And you can’t and shouldn’t hope to change it. It’s only the delusion that changes. And you’re not crazy. On my couch with someone sleeping beside me. I think. I hear the quiet movements of something above. Of something humming with energy, groaning at the fading life of itself. I can feel something in my mouth, but I’m too scared to take it out. What if it’s a tooth? A bug? A worm? Fire? Something important? Something good? I can’t lose it. Whatever it is, I can’t afford to lose something I don’t truly have. It’s mine. Forever. MINE.

“Get rid of all your mistakes, easy, quick, no-downs, bottoms-up!” Read the label. The pill was small. But, it promised so much. To get rid of the airiness under your feet. To dry your palms and give you back your skin so you stop feeling so exposed. It promises you so much. So I took it and took out my wallet. Getting out 100 and leaving it on the nightstand alongside the bottle of pills. My shirt was around my neck and my pants were somewhere else. I stood up to find them, then left the room. Then left the apartment, got into my car, and drove off. Leaving the parking complex. Leaving the district. Leaving the state. Leaving the country. Leaving the world with the famous-es-eses playing on the radio, cheering me on, “You can save me. But, can you save yourself?”

The shower head shoots with life, raining down the lukewarm water onto me. I scrub shampoo into my hair, massage my scalp, and try to get rid of a headache. I wash away all the foam from my hair. I try to run my fingers over and over in my hair to soothe something out of it. I rub my eyelids, feeling the pressure and pain that comes with the pressing. The white of my eyes slowly turns blood red as vessels finally choose to pop.

A pill bottle waits for me in the sink. All the pills are missing and the cap has been removed from the orange body. The sink drain is wide open, with crumbs of the pill’s coating being left behind in the capsule. I look into the medicine cabinet mirror. I see those bloodshot eyes. I see those rounding shoulders of tireless nights. I see those yellowing teeth and colored tongue. Blue, red, and green: Cocktails, pusgem, and Mr. Alcohol. I can feel my body burning with soreness and fatigue. Every movement is heavy and slow. I stared into the void of the drain. Looking for the blue and red pills that I poured down it. I can feel my lungs breathing harder and harder, air trying to squeeze through tighter and tighter meat corridors. Blood pumping and pumping, cells shove themselves through plaque-filled vessels. The light from the window shows off everything. Giving a gentle hue to the world, especially the bathroom. If you were to see me from the back, you would think this would be a nice-looking scene. The window is the main light source, giving a gentle light to everything as I slowly lose my mind and try to shove my fingers down a sink-drain. Pushing my skin through the rough edges of the drain’s entrance. Shoving fingers down it. Trying to grab the essence of a blue thing down at the bottom.

Kicking and bashing in the sink’s wooden framed body. The one that’s closed off and only meant for specialists and know-howers. I kicked it in. Kicking it till my toenails became jagged and peeled off. The pain coursed through every fiber of me. I can feel the tendons of my feet ripping. Bones wishing to break from the stress. Fragments of my body tearing off and peeling. I kneeled down and saw the sink trap hiding in the dark. I grabbed a hold of it and kept pulling. One pull. Then another. And another. Continuously. For hours. For days. For years I pulled on the thing, and then something snapped.

“You can’t help, but be so hateful. You just can’t. And you gotta stop being a bitch, and accept that shit…” The ho-man leaned back and relaxed his back on the motel’s wall, in the alley behind the motel, where the trash and mice were. Where the towers and Living Towers blocked out the sun, only their underside lights shining the world, he told me, “Know what? Give me $300, and I’ll let you do whatever to me.”

Then Divinity started singing, an angelic high-pitched voice of a woman was singing, “I’m afraid they’re gonna find you and I can only watch.” I punched the man and he fell to the ground. “A century of your priceless time to commit a victimless crime.” I got on top of him, and he held his hands up to the sky, palms wide open, ‘Thanks for the dough.’ he muttered. “Vow to color yourself bruised. Vow to punish with your torturous muse. You can hide inside my locket.” I punched him again and felt the jitter of his teeth against my knuckles, I could feel his body quiver, and his voice groaned with fear. “Put a leash on when they walk you. Next year say you didn’t want to.” I elbowed his chest, trying to hurt him as much as possible. I hated him so much. I wanted to kill the fucker. “Do they scream at you when you fall? Shallow skin and they stay. Start a collection of brine. Because all you do is cry. Cry. Cry. Honey. Baby.”

I helped him lean against the wall again. Having him sit next to it, to catch some needed sleep. I tucked the money under his ass and left the alley. Taking a nice stroll on the sidewalk. Looking up the motel’s LED sign, “Fugue-Stay Motel” Nice and postered up on a metal skeleton on the roof for the whole world to see. Nice and tall. Same with the motel itself. 4 stories tall, with 40 rooms on each floor. There are lots of trash cans and dumpsters all around. They even have the special yellow ones, the “No-Tell” cans. The ones with chopped-off nipples, home-down circumcisions, needles, Pod-stirs, blood bags, dead rats, and whatever else. The ones where no one can peep in for any reason.

Everything is lined with LEDs and streetlights. The underside of mega-towers shines bright with needed ‘sky-lighting’. So that those beneath them can see. I parked my Carter a few blocks down so that no one would know I was at that nasty fucking motel. They’ll only see some beat-up ho and think nothing of it. It happens all the time. And if he’s smart, you won’t speak either, he’ll know where the money came from. Everything was peaceful for now, but something was still itching my neck, pressing it with long fingernails that were smooth at their ends. I started the Carter, and soon it hovered and floated. Inserting itself with the other Carters that followed an invisible line of road. Each Carter follows one another, and one dead man follows the next.

Then the line broke into free space, where the mega-towers didn’t block out everything. Outside of the inner city, and seeing the rest of it, large towers of glass shine in the moonlight, with little lights of yellow breaking the conformity. One large lake reflected light, with a large sign in the far-away mountains, a sign barely big enough to read. It said, “Northern Pride. Southern Strength.”