Fiction: Awake
So I decided I was going to try and write something every day. It might not last long, but here's today's effort...
AWAKE
I wanna feel it again. Not on my skin or in my brain but in my lungs and my heart and my stomach. I wanna feel it tearing me up and scratching my insides like it's being tattooed on the inside of my chest.
I wanna be hurt and I wanna be broken and I wanna be lying in bed, too nauseous to breathe, too fired up to lie still, too sick to get up, too pained to speak.
"I want a Jack Daniels and coke, please. Make it a double."
The words are out of my mouth before I've even thought them. The guy at the bar hands it over like he's handing over a paper towel or a flyer for a club night. Not concentrated hell in a glass. No idea of what he's unleashing.
The first one goes down smoothly. The fifth one makes me cough a little but it's only the excitement. I wipe the specks of blood off the bar and order another.
When they convinced me to give up, the doctor gave me six months. Six months from now. October. Late enough to see Kristen's wedding. Early enough to avoid the hassle dragging out over Christmas. That's the worst time for dealing with grief, they reckon.
So I drink a couple more and the grey begins to fade a little and things come into focus. There's a buzz in my hands and I feel it everywhere. My fingers, my calves, my throat, my spine... I down the seventh one and move to the next bar. Three more there, maybe more and it's powering through me now. Two years and I've finally awoken. And the world is as beautiful as I left it.
There's a crack like thunder and I'm lying on my back. People are yelling. Sirens. And I'm getting further away from it all. Pulling back. Further away.
Until all the grey is gone.
END
AWAKE
I wanna feel it again. Not on my skin or in my brain but in my lungs and my heart and my stomach. I wanna feel it tearing me up and scratching my insides like it's being tattooed on the inside of my chest.
I wanna be hurt and I wanna be broken and I wanna be lying in bed, too nauseous to breathe, too fired up to lie still, too sick to get up, too pained to speak.
"I want a Jack Daniels and coke, please. Make it a double."
The words are out of my mouth before I've even thought them. The guy at the bar hands it over like he's handing over a paper towel or a flyer for a club night. Not concentrated hell in a glass. No idea of what he's unleashing.
The first one goes down smoothly. The fifth one makes me cough a little but it's only the excitement. I wipe the specks of blood off the bar and order another.
When they convinced me to give up, the doctor gave me six months. Six months from now. October. Late enough to see Kristen's wedding. Early enough to avoid the hassle dragging out over Christmas. That's the worst time for dealing with grief, they reckon.
So I drink a couple more and the grey begins to fade a little and things come into focus. There's a buzz in my hands and I feel it everywhere. My fingers, my calves, my throat, my spine... I down the seventh one and move to the next bar. Three more there, maybe more and it's powering through me now. Two years and I've finally awoken. And the world is as beautiful as I left it.
There's a crack like thunder and I'm lying on my back. People are yelling. Sirens. And I'm getting further away from it all. Pulling back. Further away.
Until all the grey is gone.
END