Where the???What in the???
If you read this and think it came out of fucking nowhere, then I think I've done enough for one day:
2
The vial slides out of the bag and spirals around on some linoleum floor tiles, the pale brown fluid swishing around its insides. Turn on the burner to 350 and bend over to pick up the goods and place them on the kitchen counter next to pig-shaped, his and hers salt and pepper shakers; don’t want Lucas getting $100 of unadulterated escapism stuck on the sole of his Wolverine work boots. Bottom drawer: cast-iron soup toureen with the red handle; Medicine cabinet: double-ply gauze, cotton balls, and Hydrogen Peroxide. Head over to the knife block for the paring knife. No, put the toureen on the burner first, empty out the vial into it, then get the paring knife. The viscosity of the liquid is sickening, slowly oozing down the vial and dripping drop by drop into the toureen. Each droplet hangs onto the lip of the vial expanding ever-so-slowly as gravity impregnates it with more fluid, causing what looks like Worcester sauce to spill into the pan. With each new drop a phosphorescent plume of blue smoke rises towards the kitchen ceiling, causing a thick haze to form in the room like the kitchen’s private ozone layer. Pop out the bottom of the vial and blow into it, getting every last millimeter of juice into the toureen: Life is a terrible thing to waste, but if must be wasted it should be done with consummate professionalism and efficiency.
Now for the paring knife, stained a burnt brown, blade and handle held together with electrical tape as a result of years of improper and unconventional use. The liquid has begun to expand in the toureen, the heat causing enzymes to burst, allowing the water to seep out and swish around the bottom of the toureen. In the center lies a single jet black blob more akin to magma then any liquid that comes to mind. Put on the oven mitt and slowly drain the water out of the toureen and into the sink, holding in the fruits of my labor with a metal spatula. No use trying needles and surgical tubing. There hasn’t been a clean vein in this house since the Clinton administration, hence, the paring knife. Roll up the right jean leg up to the kneecap and douse the knife with hydrogen peroxide. Gauze and cotton balls at the ready, knife in hand, and delicious blackness simmering on the stove.
One stroke, the back of my calf spurts red all over the stove-front before gauze is applied. Make sure the spatula is heavy with it, rip off the gauze and paste the stuff on my leg like a plumber caulking a bathtub. All I feel is heat. Heat coursing through my leg, up my thigh, taking a slight detour at my crotch, and then straight up to the brain. I am a human thermometer with mercury rising all through my tendons and arteries. The blood from my calf swirls with the drug, but no colors change. The emptiness of the drug acts as a black hole, sucking up anything it comes in contact with, be it the blood from my leg or the fluid in my skull.
Time to lie down for a second; we’ll turn off the burner eventually. We, Lucas, standing over me; My voice tells him the stuff is ready, but my ears don’t hear it. My life is a movie on mute. Lucas violently dunks the knife in the Hydrogen Peroxide to cleanse it. I’ll have to get a new bottle later on…Is he using his forehead? I should have thought of that; more direct access. He doesn’t bother to clean the spatula, just shoves the stuff right in his profusely bleeding ajna chakra and fills his skull with cotton balls, forgoing the gauze in favor of a blue and purple paisley bandana. Lucas too slumps to the floor and his eyes begin fluttering. The drug now has its own gravitational pull towards the back of Lucas’ head, sucking cotton balls and the paisley bandana inside his forehead. His third eye is now a charred crater the size of a golf ball, Schlesinger 7 I think.
My veins have rebelled against my right calf and have organized a mass suicide, ripping their fibers from my bone in protest. Some of the veins fail in their attempt and get snared by my blood-drenched shin hairs, but most make it off the side and take root in the linoleum. The veins become like the base of the ancient giving tree, making my leg the trunk in the process. Unable to move my right leg, I pivoted around on it and switched off the burner with a flailing hand whose arc causes me to sprawl face down on the linoleum.
When I lifted my head I saw Lucas grinding his teeth madly against the metal spatula as the hole in his head grew bigger. Every single throbbing capillary could be seen slowly engulfing the whites of his eyes. His body, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of his head, was drenched in a sweat that had coated him like wood varnish. All the sweat from his scalp and forehead began to pour into his chakra crater, creating a saltwater pool above his brow. We both fell onto our sides facing one another, glazed expressions gracing our respective visages. As Lucas began to open his mouth, a small crack at the bottom of his forehead pool began expanding down his face cutting through nose cartilage and jawbones in accelerated decay. After the crack had spread all across his face, the left side of what used to be Lucas’ nose fell to the floor. He tried placing it back on, but that only added to the deterioration causing the other side of his nose to drop. It was a sadistic game of Mister Potato Head and I gleefully scooped up his writhing lips and placed them on his chest. The sight of a mouth attempting to talk with a nipple in its center is enough to make your normal junky lose focus, lose control; but I left the amateur ranks years ago and can handle such egregious breeches of rational action.
However, no man alive can withstand his best friends face splitting in two to reveal a hovel of maggots, fruit flies, and various unwanted cephalopods; and I am alive. After Lucas peeled off the last of his facial tissue I lost control and made a break for the door, but my leg was still planted to the ground. I reached up to grab the paring knife and began wildly swinging it at my calf muscles, trying to clip any rogue veins. As soon as Lucas passed out all of his facial vermin made a mad dash for me and I spent the next 30 minutes swatting at them with the soup toureen…
Once again, totally unedited first draft stuff.
2
The vial slides out of the bag and spirals around on some linoleum floor tiles, the pale brown fluid swishing around its insides. Turn on the burner to 350 and bend over to pick up the goods and place them on the kitchen counter next to pig-shaped, his and hers salt and pepper shakers; don’t want Lucas getting $100 of unadulterated escapism stuck on the sole of his Wolverine work boots. Bottom drawer: cast-iron soup toureen with the red handle; Medicine cabinet: double-ply gauze, cotton balls, and Hydrogen Peroxide. Head over to the knife block for the paring knife. No, put the toureen on the burner first, empty out the vial into it, then get the paring knife. The viscosity of the liquid is sickening, slowly oozing down the vial and dripping drop by drop into the toureen. Each droplet hangs onto the lip of the vial expanding ever-so-slowly as gravity impregnates it with more fluid, causing what looks like Worcester sauce to spill into the pan. With each new drop a phosphorescent plume of blue smoke rises towards the kitchen ceiling, causing a thick haze to form in the room like the kitchen’s private ozone layer. Pop out the bottom of the vial and blow into it, getting every last millimeter of juice into the toureen: Life is a terrible thing to waste, but if must be wasted it should be done with consummate professionalism and efficiency.
Now for the paring knife, stained a burnt brown, blade and handle held together with electrical tape as a result of years of improper and unconventional use. The liquid has begun to expand in the toureen, the heat causing enzymes to burst, allowing the water to seep out and swish around the bottom of the toureen. In the center lies a single jet black blob more akin to magma then any liquid that comes to mind. Put on the oven mitt and slowly drain the water out of the toureen and into the sink, holding in the fruits of my labor with a metal spatula. No use trying needles and surgical tubing. There hasn’t been a clean vein in this house since the Clinton administration, hence, the paring knife. Roll up the right jean leg up to the kneecap and douse the knife with hydrogen peroxide. Gauze and cotton balls at the ready, knife in hand, and delicious blackness simmering on the stove.
One stroke, the back of my calf spurts red all over the stove-front before gauze is applied. Make sure the spatula is heavy with it, rip off the gauze and paste the stuff on my leg like a plumber caulking a bathtub. All I feel is heat. Heat coursing through my leg, up my thigh, taking a slight detour at my crotch, and then straight up to the brain. I am a human thermometer with mercury rising all through my tendons and arteries. The blood from my calf swirls with the drug, but no colors change. The emptiness of the drug acts as a black hole, sucking up anything it comes in contact with, be it the blood from my leg or the fluid in my skull.
Time to lie down for a second; we’ll turn off the burner eventually. We, Lucas, standing over me; My voice tells him the stuff is ready, but my ears don’t hear it. My life is a movie on mute. Lucas violently dunks the knife in the Hydrogen Peroxide to cleanse it. I’ll have to get a new bottle later on…Is he using his forehead? I should have thought of that; more direct access. He doesn’t bother to clean the spatula, just shoves the stuff right in his profusely bleeding ajna chakra and fills his skull with cotton balls, forgoing the gauze in favor of a blue and purple paisley bandana. Lucas too slumps to the floor and his eyes begin fluttering. The drug now has its own gravitational pull towards the back of Lucas’ head, sucking cotton balls and the paisley bandana inside his forehead. His third eye is now a charred crater the size of a golf ball, Schlesinger 7 I think.
My veins have rebelled against my right calf and have organized a mass suicide, ripping their fibers from my bone in protest. Some of the veins fail in their attempt and get snared by my blood-drenched shin hairs, but most make it off the side and take root in the linoleum. The veins become like the base of the ancient giving tree, making my leg the trunk in the process. Unable to move my right leg, I pivoted around on it and switched off the burner with a flailing hand whose arc causes me to sprawl face down on the linoleum.
When I lifted my head I saw Lucas grinding his teeth madly against the metal spatula as the hole in his head grew bigger. Every single throbbing capillary could be seen slowly engulfing the whites of his eyes. His body, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of his head, was drenched in a sweat that had coated him like wood varnish. All the sweat from his scalp and forehead began to pour into his chakra crater, creating a saltwater pool above his brow. We both fell onto our sides facing one another, glazed expressions gracing our respective visages. As Lucas began to open his mouth, a small crack at the bottom of his forehead pool began expanding down his face cutting through nose cartilage and jawbones in accelerated decay. After the crack had spread all across his face, the left side of what used to be Lucas’ nose fell to the floor. He tried placing it back on, but that only added to the deterioration causing the other side of his nose to drop. It was a sadistic game of Mister Potato Head and I gleefully scooped up his writhing lips and placed them on his chest. The sight of a mouth attempting to talk with a nipple in its center is enough to make your normal junky lose focus, lose control; but I left the amateur ranks years ago and can handle such egregious breeches of rational action.
However, no man alive can withstand his best friends face splitting in two to reveal a hovel of maggots, fruit flies, and various unwanted cephalopods; and I am alive. After Lucas peeled off the last of his facial tissue I lost control and made a break for the door, but my leg was still planted to the ground. I reached up to grab the paring knife and began wildly swinging it at my calf muscles, trying to clip any rogue veins. As soon as Lucas passed out all of his facial vermin made a mad dash for me and I spent the next 30 minutes swatting at them with the soup toureen…
Once again, totally unedited first draft stuff.