A man laid torpid on his bed, sound as a stone and surrounded by scattered papers, slumped atop an off-white sheet which had long given up on environing each corner of his shady mattress. Blotches of thick black ink spot the area surrounding the sloppily reposed slump, painting his bedspread the image of a dastardly Dalmatian.
The litter of leaves seemed to lead to a large stack of brilliant ivory folios, each one exactly like the other, save for the letters so meticulously splayed across them in a hand that just couldn’t commit completely to cursive. Surprisingly, this manuscript seemed to be untouched by the black blots that bespeckled the greater room, including its siblings spread upon the floor.
The slump sat up, heavy-eyed and half dead, his ears ringing loudly the peal of his own procession. He went to rub his swollen ducts, only to smear the ink clumsily across his face and into his eyes, punctuated by a particularly hefty sigh—providing some nice backing to the climaxing chorus of exequial ecstasy echoing through his head.
As the cerebral coda concluded, the man’s optics assumed their usual position within his skull, allowing him to peer through the gape in his drapes and glean the gleam of the sickening Sun.
He stood up lazily, as if the effort to do so he had manually mustered. A sharp pain shot up his spine and deep into his throbbing brain, clouding his vision once more as he swayed to the nauseating encore.
Remembering he was still, at least in part, alive, he ambled slowly through his apartment—in a way much like you’d expect from a monochrome zombie—as he was pulled through the open bathroom door and towards the oval depression that formed the sink.
After turning the tap, he slouched over the edge of the countertop it rested on, burying his face in the ice cold water racing from the spigot as he used his hands to scrub the black from his brow.
He paused for a moment to look himself in the mirror—his unkempt hair had been left seemingly untouched by the ink, but no amount of sud and scrub could wash away the dark circles devouring his eyes.
Snatching a comb from the counter’s perimeter, he slicks back his tawny thatch and forces a wide grin. He looked down at his clothes—he had slept in his best suit again. It too had been spotted with inky blotches, ones which he then successfully tried to rub out with his hair spray, finishing off with a couple spritzes to the top.
After a quick finger-guns drawn on his reflection, he meanders his way back to his bedroom, crouching down to scoop up some of the spoils of his pretentious pedantry. He crams them into an open briefcase laid out on the floor, trying his best to fit the surplus of papers in the tight leather bag. After forcing the briefcase closed, he grips the handle and stands, planting his hand on his lower back as yet another bolt of pain flows through him. If his body is a temple, then it’s safe to say it has long been dilapidated, not too unlike the place he calls home.
He glances at the old answering machine situated on his nightstand, a string of numbers flashing across its face, unrecognizable in his current state. Just as the faint orange glow of the display reflects into the man’s cones, he cobbles together the first coherent thought of the day...
What time is it?
A sudden burst of energy overtakes him as he practically slides across the carpeted floor towards the aging device, narrowing his eyes at the symbols simulating sundials sat in the corner of the screen as he tried his best to decipher the hour. With a nondiegetic snap, the neurons aligned in his head for but a split second, allowing the man to just barely make out four numbers—13:47.
He looks underneath the time at the number of recorded calls—though this digit still seems unfamiliar to him, he presses the worn button to commence the rehearsal, its paint flaking off beneath his ink-stained fingertip. The mechanical click sounded softly as the machine’s innards spun alive, rotating a delicate carousel of thin onyx tape.
A voice begins to emanate from the trypophilic wooden panel that adorns the answerphone, speaking in a fast and faux apologetic tone.
"Hi, this is Kaitlyn with Paean Health & Wellness. I’m just calling to let you that unfortunately Dr. Sparrow is no longer taking appointm—”
Erase.
Just as he deletes the first message, another starts up, this time bellowed in a deep, almost taunting pitch.
“Good evening, Mr. Knight. I’d just wanted to inform you that while we do see your merit, Carnagey Media—”
Erase.
“Hey, Al! It’s Cash! From high school? Listen, I’m kinda in a bit of a pinch right now—”
Erase. Erase. Erase.
Alexander prodded the button excessively, watching the quantity of calls trickle down until it was finally a number he knew better than any other—0. He sighed vehemently before finally backing away and straightening his tie.
He then lifted the briefcase up to his torso, turning its side to his face, and revealing a dainty sticky note hanging off the rectangular bag. He grabbed a busted fountain pen off the bedside table and carelessly crossed a name off the small yellow page, the ink running down onto the words below it. Dropping the pen on the ground, he turned to head towards the kitchen area just beyond his bedroom, insisted by his second thought of the day...
God, I’m hungry.
Just as Alexander pulled open the refrigerator, a small can of fermented tea rolled out of the bottom shelf, slowing between his feet. He stopped for a moment to stare at the stylized aluminum vessel—twin lighting bolts pointing inwards on an eye within an apple, all three vectors outlined in a metallic yellow, separating them from the red patterns that dominate the rest of the design. In bold white lettering, the beverage promises—
“BETTER MIND, BETTER SIGHT, BETTER SOUL.
Have you an apple of your eye?”
The disheveled costume let out a snort of irony—almost resembling laughter—before picking up the can and breaking the seal, allowing it to speak once more.
“Tssss, crack, crinkle.”
Alexander took a long, rushed sip from the drink as the liquid continued letting out a hundred tiny gasps of effervescence. Spotting a delectable microwave dinner poking out from behind an aging bag of grapes, he drops the briefcase gently on the ground and reaches his right arm into the back of the fridge, careful not to spill his tea.
He carries the meal towards its true home—a yellowing box of irradiated rapport with each and every hunk of pseudo-organic mass thrown into its maw. He forced open the old door of the lattice-eyed beast, placing his quarry upon its circular tongue. As he slammed its mouth shut, the box wobbled, awaiting his input of the desired length for its feast—one minute and forty-two seconds, no more, no less.
As he awaits his banquet, Alexander collects his bag and closes the refrigerator, marching over to a different kind of beast—a large, leather power recliner sat in the corner of the living area across from the island. The thing’s skin pealed in various places, though the biggest of these patches was covered by a large quilt, each square even harder to make out than the last under the years of wear, tears, and dust. Even still, this piece of furniture and its adorning patchwork are perhaps the most beloved bundles of atoms to ever greet this room.
He heaves his body onto the seat, nesting comfortably into an ancient imprint—almost as if he had done this every day for millennia—allowing his muscles to rest for a moment as he sets the briefcase down once more. Using this time to try and kick his wits out of unconscious automaticity, he attempts to spark his remaining brain cells against one another, seeking a cascade of cerebral ignition. The man’s efforts were soon corroborated by the loud ding of the nuke-box, undoubtably produced to alert the wretch of his plebeian repast.
In an instant, his dried-out brain shifted in its bowl of stale cerebrospinal soup as his choroid plexus brewed up a fresh batch; the man could dare say that he felt it pulsate and expand as his dome was reinvigorated, feeling each and every follicle and goosebump shoot up as his posture stiffened—he was back in action, at least for now.
Alexander hauled himself off the chair and towards the open kitchen, almost ripping the door of the old microwave clean off. He yanked the food from its tray and whisked open a drawer nestled flush within the counter, grabbing a small fork of lightly-corroded silver. Closing both the appliance and the drawer in a cursory spin, he stops in the direction of his doted recliner, and waltzes toward it. Plonking back down in his throne, the man violently pronged the plastic container of specially-processed starch and animal dregs, gorging away at his grub. The stray particles of nutrients that had escaped the production line slipped into his stomach with haste, nigh-immediately being broken down and turned into energy.
Following his feast, Alexander found himself finally ready to start his day, tossing the empty tray onto the side table that lives beside the chair. He walked towards the frontdoor and snatched the decorated keyring that dangled from its hook, briefly glancing at the age-old calendar hanging next to the exit. The thing hadn’t been replaced in years, as the month read load and erroneous the bright, bold characters of July, 1997. Beneath the text was a chart of numbered boxes, each checked-off all the way up until the number, 22.
Something felt vaguely familiar about this day, a notion that had struggled to claw its way out of the Tartarean depths of the man’s subconscious. Despite being exactly a decade out-of-date, this particular string of numbers seemed vastly more recognizable than any other he had encountered earlier that moilsome mimicry of morning. Alexander flung the feeling around in his head, waiting for the moment his memory would prevail. He nearly retched when it finally clicked—it had been his daughter’s birthday.
II.
Alexander scrambled needfully around his apartment, rummaging for the gift he had prepared not a week ago. It wasn’t that he had necessarily forgotten the occasion, more so that he had gotten caught up in the throws of the poetical lifestyle. Soon enough, he found the small box of gilt and ribbon hidden beneath a pile of sullied clothes, tossed upon the shag with the same amount of care as he thought himself deserved. Upon collecting the gift, he brushed each side of it with a swat of his hand, hoping to disguise its mistreatment. After quickly stuffing the box into his pants pocket, he dashed back for the door, unlocking it in a hurried frenzy. Just before he passed through the open threshold, he practically leapt over the recliner to fetch his briefcase.
Sprinting through the hallway of his floor, Alexander unknowingly left a trail of smeared papers spilling out from the loosely shut bag. The spoor followed him down the stairwell and out the door, stopping in front of his Olds sedan—the last of a dying creed, untarnished only in spirit. Steeping into the senescent vehicle, Alexander set the briefcase upon the dashboard and stabbed the key into the ignition. He sat just as he slammed the car door shut behind him, turning the key and sending a spark down the winding coil that leads into the engine. The car sped out of its spot with all the fervor of a lame housecat, the man strangling its gearshift, sputtering down the road towards his desired destination.
Alexander reached into the glove box and produced a small candybar cellphone; with one hand on the steering wheel, he flicked the flimsy device on and peered at its notifications—13 MISSED CALLS, the bulk of which were sent by a contact listed simply as Dinah. He pondered as he barreled forth, contemplating whether or not it would be a worthwhile endeavor to even attempt at responding to the unclaimed correspondence. They had once been close, him and her, as close as two could be one sultry night on a layover flight marked by fleeting delight—but that was long ago, and now the only real issue preventing total ignorance between the two had been the spawn they begot together. It hadn’t even been that Alexander didn’t want children, he just wasn’t ready.
In the end, he decided it best to—at the very least—try, a rare occurrence for a man of his renown. He initiated the call and pinched the phone between his shoulder and his ear, allowing the heightened pitch of the ringing to penetrate deep into his drums—and ring it did, for quite some time, until—
“...”
The silence hammered into him tenfold with the assistance of the static spitting out a heavy drone. His breathing quickly became stunted as his heartrate climaxed, an obviously good fit for anyone behind a wheel. A light heave escaped his throat as if bile was eager to spill—not the choleric bile of amber anger, but the splenic secretions of pitchy perturbation—not too unlike ink. His mind raced to find the words, the perfect dialogue that would cover his ass as it had so many times before, but not one stray syllable was bore. He allowed himself to toil in this tightening transfixture, as he knew the other line would revel in his tremulous stuttering, lest he remained inaudible.
The man struggled to keep his shrunken pupils on the road as his consciousness fled off to whatever subliminal bliss would take him. This dissociation was promptly shattered by a sigh and the laconic query it heralded.
“What was it this time?”
Razors. Pins. Needles—thousands of inch-thin pains perforating his heart. The shallow thing had plummeted into his stomach long before this moment, but now he could damn-near hear the echo of its impact on the bottom of the world. She had known this would happen, and that harsh notion of expectedness destroyed him. He knew he had to be fast and fastidious; defensive; adaptive. If he let his guard down for even just a moment, he would surely be mauled and strung.
“Excuse me?”
His words were moist with perspiration, slightly pitiful, and softly mouthed—all exactly as intended. Lure her in with perceived weakness, make her feel even the slightest bit guilty.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Alex, you aren’t deaf. You know exactly what I’m talking about. What possible excuse could you conjure up this time?”
Her words were conveyed in a subdued shout—the downcast wrath of a furious, albeit disappointed, woman.
“I’m on the way, I just—”
She interrupted him.
“What? Were you drinking? Do not tell me we’re doing that again…”
“No, I—”
She gasped sarcastically, “You’re back on the blotter?!”
“God no, just—”
“Back with Cecilia?”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened—a sore spot has been struck.
“Listen—”
“Or was this because of one of those mythical job interviews you’ve talked so much about?”
“You’ve made your point, now—”
“Surely you didn’t have to push some old lady’s car out the road, again? Right?”
“I wasn’t lying, she blew a gasket, but—”
Alexander’s words sounded almost desperate by this point, the irate woman was in control, a position he somehow convinced himself he had lended. Even still, his fortitude was waning at breakneck speed; he needed to assert himself. Half-truths were the way to go, a sure-fire way to throw her off the scent of dishonesty while still leaving room for retooling.
“I slept in.”
Dinah blew a gasket of her own.
“Yeah, I’ve figured that by now, asshole. I meant: what were you doing last night that happened to be so goddamn important that you would be late to this party? Because, I swear to you, if you somehow just up and forgot after my months of warning—”
“I was working.”
“You really aren’t even going to try and make this easier on us, are you?”
Even after all these years, her voice was still tinged with disbelief.
“I’m serious, Dinah. I was just dressing the manuscript so it would be more appealing for agencies. I want to be able to provide for Charlie, I really do—even for you if I can, to make it easier. But, this is the only thing I have ever been good at, and I’m sure if I just find the right agent, we can live scot-free for the rest of our lives. I’m confident in that.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Total and utter silence, the slight buzz of the phone’s static had dissipated into an eerie hush
? ? ?
Alexander was a man uniquely acquainted with each and every one of his wrongdoings, the worst kind of awareness for recovery—despite his frequent attempts at consultation, he knows deep in his spleen of spleens that no professional can help a man whose high horse rides as close to the Sun as his, looking down upon his own actions as if he were a spectator at a play. A part of him loved the drama, another hated him for it, and a third hated both for their cheap discourse—such is the plague of those creative-types.
? ? ?
“Why did you even bother?”
The words were concise and provocative, bringing to mind a number of possible trails Dinah might’ve walked to reach such a phrase. To call? To come? To consider?—each likely in their own right, but Alexnader knew the answer.
“Because, I still love her—she’s my daughter and I still care about her. How can that possibly not be enough for you?”
“She’s ten, Alex. You either get her a present or you don’t exist as far as she’s concerned—and frankly, I’m with her.”
The man pats his pocket—sure enough, the box is still there.
“Of course, I got her a present, I’m not missing the big one-oh. Just tell her I’m coming and I’ll get out of your hair, promise.”
“Don’t disappoint her.”
Just as soon as her voice ceased, so did the call, leaving Alexander alone and but a drop emptier than he was before. He tossed the cellphone to the passenger seat and planted his head into the horn, a sign of distress not uncommon in this species. As he looked up, his eyes locked with a pair of oncoming headlights, prompting him to serve off the highway and be sent rolling down the hilltop it was laid upon. He braced as his skin was cut by stray glass shards and sharp shrapnel, slamming into a large tree as the car came to a crashing halt, killing him instantly.
III.
Time was frozen around him—suspended dust particles illuminated by the reflections of sparks shone like will-o’-wisps—the man’s body was now one with the hulking steel chassis he had clung to for far too long, a malformed heterogeneous mass of meat and metal. The excited bile had finally been expelled from what had once been considered a mouth, but it too was indistinguishable from the ruptured oil and dry ink that had mixed in with his blood. The resulting concoction of fluids had soaked into his tattered suit, his tie now strangling his broken neck, tightly snagged on a nearby branch. In cruel and hideous spite of the grim fate that enveloped him, Alexander could still feel himself breath. His legs that had just been annihilated in the flattened hunk mere moments ago now felt weightless as he went to stand. He blinked, and it was all gone.
Around him now was an endless void of bright, white light—not a single thought could escape the ephemeral afterimage of a man, as he had no brain to think nor to comprehend the space he found himself in, and the stupor of death overwhelmed him. He glanced down at his hands, following them to his arms, and then to the rest of his body, all still wrapped up in that ill-fitting costume. The phantom shade of his heart jumped as he felt a cold finger tap his shoulder from behind—
“Ah! There you are…”
Alexander spun around to face a tall, slight man not much older than himself—he was adorned in a clean, white suit with a large, similarly-colored overcoat. Around his neck was a thin thread supporting a small, circular pendant—all articles a familiar white. His figure nearly blended into the empty background, his olive skin standing out as the only semblance of contrast. His voice was light but throaty, like that of a smoker, and his words came out in a spasmodic rhythm.
“You’d think it would be pretty hard to lose things in a place like this? Huh, buster?”
The baffling man flashed a half-baked smile at the baffled.
“Wh—I—wha—uh—” the murmurs broke through his fugue.
Stammers and syllables were the only thing Alexander could produce, both in part to the scene before him and the catatonia of cerebral cessation.
“Riiiiiight. I see, I see.” the man stepped backwards, diagonal from Alexander ”Don’t sweat it. This is all completely normal—just watch your breathing and take a moment if you must.”
The stranger snapped his fingers at the area just behind Alexander, spontaneously spawning a suitably stark stool, before felling backwards with a flare and landing in his own plush, white armchair.
“That should help.”
Alexander sat down with an air of caution, weary of the man’s eccentricities. The two lingered there in silence for what could’ve been eons, the mess of white cloth twiddling his thumbs in mindless revolutions as he watched the eyes of the nigh-comatose man before him. Alexander struggled to scrap together even one full line of that conscious commodity we call conversation, but his time was running short and his lips still parted.
“I’m…dead?” he uttered the two words, sharp yet shallow in his throat.
The stranger sat up with apparent glee at the broken pause.
“Afraid so, bud, happens to the best of us—if it’s any merit, it does seem yours was…” the man spoke with his hands in all ways but literal, ”...rather quick.”
“This—this can’t be right…I was just—I need—”
Alexander’s head fell into his hands as he sunk into himself.
“More time? Don’t we all; but, where’d the fun be in that?”
The pleading man’s eyes flit up to face the sardonically svelte figure.
“You—you can’t be serious?”
“I know this might be a little…difficult, to say the least, but everyone’s gotta go through it eventually. It just so happened that today, it was your turn.”
“This isn’t fair—not today—not today.”
“If not today, then when? When would you have rather gone? It’s a troubling game, that one, I suggest you don’t play it, brother.”
There was mercy in his tone, a genuine attempt at comfort in spite of the nonchalant nature of his words, but Alexander was never willing to listen. It wasn’t his time.
“Listen, I really don’t mean to rush, butttt…” the stranger peered down at a watch of dubious origin before letting out a sigh, “...if you do wish to ask any questions regarding the nature of existence, then I really have to suggest you ask them now.”
“W—What? Why? Is there a time limit or something?”
“As a matter of fact, there is—approximately five minutes from now, you’ll fade away and your soul will move on towards its next life.”
“To where? What does that mean? Where am I going?”
Alexander sat back up with a newfound urgency.
“Ohhhh, you aren’t going anywhere, buster. Whatever it is you consider yourself to be will disappear alongside this broken body—cause enough for hurry for you?”
The shattered man scrambled to his feet and grabbed hold of the stranger’s silken collar. The nanoscopic specks of Alexander’s eyes pierced through his airy visage like hole-punchers. Now on exhibition: the stentorian echo of a beat long dead.
“If you think for one goddamn second that I am just about to sit idly by and shrivel up while my daughter sits and waits, then you’ve got to be the looniest fucking tune I have ever heard. Now, I don’t know what kind of abstruse Animistic Tibetan hoodoo you adhere to, but I swear on my godforsaken life that I will find a way to eviscerate your every pore if you don’t send me right back down there, right now.” the graveled savage barked.
The spotless stranger grinned in the face of the despondent disaster before him—Alexander continued spitting out unfulfillable threats, though muffled behind gritted teeth.
“Gotta say, brother—your eloquence astounds…”
He taps his foot and vanishes, reappearing cross-legged on the stool behind Alexander, prompting the dead man to fall forward into the ritzy armchair.
“...but, you’ve already died. Even if I could force you back into your body, it would be no use—you’d be a clamoring husk.” the stranger mimicked the gestures of the living dead, ”The best thing you can do for yourself now is calm your nerves and take it in stride.”
Alexander huffed in defeat before pushing himself up from the chair and turning around to sit in it proper.
“Isn’t that better?” the stranger cocks his head tauntingly, “Now, what was it you wanted to ask? 4:22 on the clock.”
“Where am I?”
“Somewhere between here and there—life and death. A place of abstract forms, the perfect canvas for thought-death.”
“The Hyperuranion?”
“Not a clue what that means, bud.”
“So you’re not omnipotent?”
“God no, that’d be Hell. I just know what I need to.”
“So what exactly are you, then? An angel? A psychopomp? A reaper?”
“None of the above—I’m human, no less than you. I think I was…chosen, in a way, to persist here—make it easier for those that come along, so I suppose I’m also a bit of everything.”
“So…who were you—in life? Why would they chose you”
“Well, I believe I was once called Simon, but things do happen to get a bit fuzzy out here. I know I died laughing, so it couldn’t have been that bad, and I know I had a fair bit of money. That’s actually about it—they must pick at random.”
Simon smiled before glancing back down at his timepiece.
“3:29—might want to step on it.”
“Is there a god?”
“Maybe.”
“An afterlife?”
Simon motioned loosely towards the space around them, “Look around.”
“Right, but I mean like a cosmic dyad—a Heaven, a Hell—that kind of deal?”
“Nope, this is it; once you fade from here, it’s over. Nothing.”
“So, what? Just…black?”
Simon shrugs.
“Aren’t you actually supposed—you know—to give me an answer?”
“Well, I can’t tell you what I don’t know, brother.”
“Fine.”
Alexander pauses in thought.
“What ever happened to D.B Cooper?”
“Who?” Simon raised an eyebrow.
“Never mind—the pyramids, was that us?”
“Of course it was, what kind of question is that?”
“Moon landing?”
“Real.”
“All of them?”
“We went back?”
“Meaning of life?”
“Whatever you make of it.”
“Were any of the religions even close?”
“Several, though not by a large margin.”
“What about Jesus? Was he real?”
“As in a real person who went on to inspire the figure of Jesus? Yes—nice guy.”
“King Arthur?”
“More or less.” Simon wobbles his hand.
“Atlantis?”
“Metaphor.”
“Time?”
“Actually no, that one’s a myth—”
“I meant how much longer until I” Alexander lifts both his hands and begins flapping his fingers about, ”You know?”
“Ah—2 minutes.”
“Uhhh—you, how are you still here?”
“I told you, I—”
“I know, I know—but how haven’t you faded? You said it happens to all of us, right? You’re still us, right?”
“Well, I—” Simon raises an index finger, ”I actually can’t answer that, it’s sorta off my paygrade.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean what I said, that one’s off the table, buster”
“So, there is something keeping you here, tethering you—an anchor?”
For the first time since his arrival, Alexander notices a glimmer of uncertainty in Simon’s face.
“Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t, but I’m sure you have far more pressing questions…”
“Is it something tangible? Solid?”
“You can hear me, right?”
“Something like a—”
Alexander’s eyes immediately locked-on to banal necklace dangling from the stranger’s neck; nigh-invisible overlaid upon his unblemished white clothes, the thing was as dull as it was unnoticeable. Alexander immediately pounces onto the flagrantly vague veneer of humanity and grabs hold of the pendant, knocking the two upon what constitutes for ground before pulling at the pendant with all the force his dwindling form can muster.
Simon’s attempts at combating the man were useless, as his abilities seemed to falter the second shock consumed him—he had successfully managed to displace himself numerous times, though each was alongside the wrestling Alexander.
“Oh, come on! You’ve no idea what it is you’re doing—this is not how any of this works! You’re only going to end up hurting yourself, brother, just let go!”
In one final push, Simon leveraged the full force of his legs into Alexander’s chest and tried once more to displace. He stood up nearly six feet from the writhing writer and dusted himself off, seemingly proud of his efforts—that was until, he looked down at his collar. On the abstract floor, in tattered suit and loose tie, was the reverberated pantomime of a man of vile hubris—a frail fa?ade that tightly gripped in his hand a vapid amulet of plain white stone.
“Oh…man…”
In an instant, the dust that once comprised the lavish figure dissipated into the air, his lingering expression fading soon behind. Alexander had no time to mourn, for as soon as the stranger vanished, the void began to shake. His eyes shifted and dilated as he tried to focus on the unraveling scene before him—colors unknown to him twirled in whorls ineffable; forms and thoughts coalesced as the white box around him collapsed inwards on his mind. His body stretched in a vain attempt to chase the ebbs and flows of his own veering consciousness—he was being pulled somewhere new. Alexander’s brain promptly unplugged for the remainder of the unfathomable experience of reanimation.
He came to reposed in a small bathtub, the water tinged by pools of red and mud. As he sat up, he examined his naked body—not a scratch to be found, nor a bone that was broken. His head was throbbing with a pain only accessible to those who had returned from the dead, or those who had blown a cornucopia of dope. It had felt like a thousand concurrent hangovers with not a relief even imaginable. The man reached his numb hand to the back of his skull, discovering a heaping gash directly above his neck. He stood to crawl out of the bath, the bloody, muddy water dripping from his gaunt figure. As he pulled himself upwards upon the sink beneath the mirror, he glared with terror at what had glared back—the face of the tall, slight stranger who had once been called Simon.