I'm in Treble.

Three-Minute Fiction

Something I rewrote for a three-minute fiction contest.

—-

When I open my eyes, I am absorbed in an overwhelming sense of dread, of unchained loneliness in the wake of infinite possibility provided by my dreams. The walls close in. Reality chokes the skin and makes it hard to breathe. All the world seems a cage and nothing seems possible anymore.

I rise, shrugging off the burden of the impossible, stumbling to the coffee machine.

The tile floor is cold. The creaking wooden floors tell the walls where I’m going. I move about my apartment in a dance of boring routine and sad monotony. I keep on moving to successive points and destinations common to any modern city dweller. I distract myself, like the good commuter I am, with improvised rhythms tapped out just beneath my pockets. I let anxiety and uncertainty dissipate through tiny sonic explosions rising from my fingertips.

I stumble through the doors of classrooms and workplaces and do what every good boy should do until I can’t stand it anymore. I step outside for a break. I grab another coffee. On the way back I light up a joint in the corner of an alleyway.

A homeless man walks by. He tells that me that one day soon, “e’rything is gonna come topplin’ down.” I smile and shake his hand and give him the rest of my joint.

Back through the doors, back past the water coolers, through another set of doors and into a device that will carry me skyward until it doesn’t anymore. The music in these vehicles is shit. The people don’t seem much better.

The offices drain me. The classrooms invigorate me. I’m overwhelmed by inspiration at the strike of six pm, departing through the front door with a smile that couldn’t be subdued by the most dramatic of tragedies.

But the modern world is no place for epic tragedies. The modern world is sly, subversive, and by small increments of marginal devastation, the inspiration is gone. I see a homeless man lying in the street alongside his dog. I watch young men and women walking in slow, staggering paths with their faces buried in small, glossy metallic devices. I see skyscrapers and try to picture what may be happening within that shiny glass cage. I can’t help but wonder if any of it is relevant. I can’t help but wonder if Mars or Jupiter or Venus would care.

Then, emerging from the familiar blur of human bodies infinitely compressed and compartmentalized on sidewalks and street corners, a vibrant, purple flower pedal finds its way to a place beside my foot. I make eye contact. The buzz of the crosswalk underscores our encounter.

Some journey, something magnificent or boring or otherwise unworthy of mention has brought it here, sitting humbly, searching the sky for the nuclear fireball it calls ‘Mother.’ Instead, the pedal finds me, gazing down at it with a hushed, desensitized stare.

From where did it arrive? Where was it going? Turning to my left, I see a man in the distance darting through the crowded streets with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of purple flowers. His haste is polite, and he bobs and weaves through the crowd without disrupting their worn paths.

The flower pedal is still at my feet, that curious arrangement of stardust unlike my own. I bend at the knees and rise with the pedal in hand.

All is well and that’s all that it will ever be. The glowing white walk signal appears across the way and I continue on.

Where to find the end and what it should feel like.

            From a pale blue sky, unscathed but for the delicate streams of clouds hanging above our Earthly heads, the apocalypse comes barreling in at speeds we only pretend to understand. It pushes the air down your throat, rushing oxygen to a sentient mass of nerves that is in desperate need of an atmospheric embrace. The end is coming and unlike those other expressions of existence that occupy the forest floor and the freezing depths of what makes this home pale and blue, you can recognize it. You are aware of your end, what the end looks like and the way it should feel when the hand of the clock suddenly shivers with finality.

            Of course, none of this has occurred yet, or rather, you didn’t notice it.

            Many things have happened already since that rock fell from that Russian sky and injured thousands. Relationships have decayed and reverberated through the paper-thin walls of an apartment complex. Blood has stained desert sand and hopeless, final gasps of breath have arrived or escaped from tired sentient lungs. Animals have become prey and prey has narrowly dodged oblivion. Viruses have taken root in the lungs of unsuspecting fauna. Bacterial lineages have expanded far beyond any documentable human family history.

            Girls have fallen in love. Boys have missed the smell of home.

            All of these things have happened, are still happening and will happen under that heavenly frame oscillating between blue and black, backwards and forwards unto no end. We are all dancing around on the same roll of film, trying to get the perfect take before the reels run out.

            We try to remain objective, but it can be very easy to forget the context in which these reels spin. We’ve discovered an idea of what the first frame might have been. We’ve contemplated what the last frame might contain within its caramel-black barriers. We’ve gazed out into the white-speckled blackness with wide eyes and wondered at the top of our lungs, “How could this possibly be?” No one will hesitate to affirm her understanding of our context. We’ve all seen photos of the pale blue dot we call home, the farewell snapshots of our hand-crafted miracles escaping the tender prisons of magnetic fields and atmospheric pressure. No one will deny that the end is forever nigh, waiting in the wings until it can’t stand to idle any longer.

            We know this, but we forget this. We understand this, but partition our consciousness in such a fashion that we may care about the Kardashians, what some ape was wearing at the Grammy’s, the color of our skin when the air grows too cold. We know that the happy accident of consciousness contains the entire universe. We know that this thing we call ‘us’ is contingent upon a consistent supply of oxygen to a soft mass of nerves encased in a hard bone shell. We know that blunt trauma will destroy this mass. We know that entire personal universes disappear when a gaze is a gaze no more.

            Yet we busy ourselves with anything but pure awe and gratefulness. We kill men and women when we could just as easily embrace them. Entire lives come to a screeching halt for the petty change in a worn denim pocket. Children are crushed in the rubble of a home shattered by foreign interests and the black gold that happens to lie below their feet.

            We forget that the reels are rolling above a raging fire, only holding on by chance for the simple fact that they can. When they grow tired of hanging on, when they seek to eliminate the monotony of simply being, we will be along for the ride just as we always have been.

            From a pale blue sky, the void slips into the editing room and makes its presence known. It waves hello and reminds us that all of this fucking gorgeous mess has been loaned to us without reason. Nothing is keeping it here. There is no reason for it stay. It may be gone tomorrow or in five billion years. You may breathe easy at age fifty-five knowing that your drawers are filled with sterling silver, or you may choke on your next breath and die before you have a chance to say, “I love you.”

             I’m not saying I know better than any other lonely ape on the planet Earth, but oblivion should make us humble, should make us remember that our paths are chosen, not decreed. And if you can’t see oblivion in a ball of flame erupting in the sky, where can it be found?

             Enjoy that coffee and relish that kiss. There is absolutely no reason for it to see you tomorrow.

Tuesday.

Today I woke up on the surface of a planet that has witnessed the extinction of 99% of the lifeforms who called it home.

Not saying I’m jumping for joy at the sight of Tuesday, but it sure feels good to be conscious right now.

Discontent. (3)

And by discontent, I mean, “__________________________.”

——

There was never a past or a future; there were just some ideas you fell in love with for a moment, some things you wished you could take with you.

I pull my shoes off my feet and wonder if that’s where my story ends.

‘Here’ is a place I like to call home, when I’m not too drunk or the drugs aren’t quite strong enough. ‘Here’ is where I stand, situated between other bodies with other goals and dreams and hopes. I sit down and study the nuance in my natural wooden desk, or maybe the desk studies the curious facial expressions of a 22-year-old mammal.

Maybe none of this is really happening anyway. I can’t be completely sure, and ergo sum just isn’t cutting it this evening.

Head hanging, eyes darting from wooden rings to an empty bottle to the flat white wall before me, I try to locate my position along a timeline of endless waves of physics, circumstance and compassion. Where is it, this thing I call ‘me’? Where does it go when I fall asleep?

Into the ground, above the clouds, backed up onto a 3TB drive.

Truthfully, this dance gets me nowhere and I would be much better off simply tapping my feet in the corner rather than partaking in this clusterfuck of thought, but I can’t quite help myself. It’s natural, this curiosity, or so that’s what I’ve been told. It’s part of the blueprint from the anonymous designer. It’s the invisible mover plugging in synapses and watching the wheels turn. I can’t help but get lost in the thought, so lost that I’ve forgotten what I came here to do.

When I rise in the morning to prepare myself for interfacing with my kin, I’m supposed to wonder why. When I pour my coffee and sharpen my pencil, I’m supposed to question the ultimate purpose of what I’m doing. When I experience the lovely sensation of fingertips placed upon coiled steel strings, I’m supposed to wonder if there is a great plot unfolding here, if I am amid the stuff of novels and films and poems and symphonies.

But thought reminds me that one day the universe implodes. Where do I place my inquiry then?

Thought reminds me that tomorrow was never promised and yesterday is just the firing of nerves. What can my purpose possibly be?

What am I even getting at here? What is it I’m trying to create with these curious characters given meaning only by recognition of said meaning from an external source? I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. The modern world informs me that nothing is worth consideration lest I record its meaning within 160 characters or less.

And so it goes. I come back to the desk, wondering where it may have come from. Where were these atoms before? What sort of monumental struggles have they overcome to arrive here and assist me in the organization of the things I call ‘mine’? Maybe I dreamt the desk. Maybe the desk dreamt me.

Maybe I’m a script running in a computer in the year 2056.

Eventually, I wake up. There are things to be done, matters that need tending and, as far as I can see with these poorly-designed, sentient eyes, there’s nothing before me but a rising sun and the idea that this may all be here when the sun rises again.

Or maybe it won’t, but would that really matter anyway?

Hesitate (A drug I wrote about for a month before I kicked its imaginary ass, cold-turkey.)

Room 2B

When I was a child, my mother sat me down and told me that in all the world, in all the vast and empty world, there wasn’t a single thing worth fighting for. She told me that, one day, I would find something that appeared to be such a thing, but that it wouldn’t be. She held out her hand and cupped it around my cheek.

She spoke softly, “and if you find something that is, it will be taken away from you anyway.”

-

The walls of the hallway leading to Room 2B are white and calm my nerves and straighten my posture, though that could be the Hesitate talking. I took the drug in the lobby bathroom. My syringe had already been prepared.

Covered in words whose curves are sharp and violent, the wall by the door reads, “You will never make it out of here alive,” among other things.

The color of the waiting room from whence I came is best described as an accumulation of shades procured from dust, the filthy hands of passers-by and various blotches of sun damage from the bare windows along the walls. The lot that makes up the room’s human content: less than impressive. Judged solely upon ticks and scratching, I count five drug addicts and three unemployed single mothers.

You’d need a second opinion to really be sure. These days we’re all itching and scratching.

After shooting up the drug it doesn’t take more than a quick wave to the receptionist for the ancient buzzer to produce its dying scream and the door to swing open in awkward juts and scrapes. I snake my way through, taking one last glance at the sad lot occupying the room.

The muggy air of the hallway feels like fate, and 2B is beginning to look more like a prison gate than a prescriber’s office door. I’ve been coming here for a long while now, supporting my drug addiction with doctors whose function is more akin to a chemical sugar daddy than that of a healer. Lately Dr. Roberts has been probing my habits more closely.

Lets not fall victim to misunderstanding – this man has no interest in saving me from drug addiction or any of its ugly cousins. His worries are legal in nature.

I’m halfway down the hallway when I’m side swiped by a crumbling mess and her dealer.

“Dr. Frasier,” I say, offering him a very stern handshake, if it weren’t for the tremble of my nerves. The Hesitate is starting to kick in. He offers his hand in return, not with courtesy but formality in mind. A young and crippled blonde trails behind him in a drug-induced stupor. A few months ago I may have been trailing behind him just the same. Dr. Frasier prescribed me medication for my mock panic attacks. Occasionally he’d fill me a prescription for some painkillers too, but only if my façade of social anxiety was kicking up that week. On a good day, if he’s had his fill of young and vulnerable women, he’s quite the drug dispensary.

“Hello Aiden. How’ve you been?” He scans the length of the hallway before pulling his cargo around the corner. She’s gorgeous, or would-be gorgeous, if it weren’t for the tattered hair, torn and dirty clothes, and the drool stretching from her bottom lip.

“I’m alright, Doc.”

“How’s the mother?”

“She’s passed.”

Dr. Frasier’s composure shifts, his demeanor becoming father-like, or would-be father-like, if Dr. Frasier knew anything about or had any interest in compassion. As he adjusts his tie, I can see the blonde in tow is twiddling her fingers, playing with the ends of her coat and taking small steps in place as the doctor and I mediate our awkward encounter. The doctor shifts the conversation to the grief process and his voice trails off into a seemingly bottomless pit of empathy scraped from the pages of a Death & Dying pamphlet. Needless to say, I let my attention drift.

Despite her clothing and near comatose state, she is quite ravishing. Her face is innocent, something one rarely encounters in corridors like this. Her body screams complacency and indifference. Her eyes whisper, “I don’t belong here.” That may be it. Anyone who doesn’t belong here is immediately more beautiful, no matter how worn they have become during their internment.

When you don’t belong, you simply don’t belong.

“I like your shoes. What’s your name?”

The doctor freezes for a moment. His cargo lifts her hand to her mouth and nervously fondles her lips. It’s only seconds later that Frasier breaks my gaze with the wave of a hand. There is a pant underneath each of Dr. Frasier’s words as he needlessly explains the importance of secrecy in our encounter before trailing off down the hallway toward 2B and finally around the corner into 2D. She follows him every step of the way, trotting along like an uninterested child preoccupied with a new toy.

With no obstacles in my path, I walk slowly toward Room 2B. The Hesitate is nearly in full effect now and the world is slowing down. The fans in the vents above me reveal themselves in slow revolutions, calling my attention with every spin. My feet start to drag and their scraping comes as a piercing grind. I try to lift them higher, but the Hesitate is undiscouraged. The wince I make at the sound is reduced to an odd looking contortion of the face. I steady myself with the walls and continue down the hallway.

It feels like hours by the time I reach the door, and days have passed before I find my way into the room.

Hesitate

What you need to know about Hesitate isn’t so much what it’s made of but more so what you’re made of. It’s not the chemicals, it’s not the altered brain state; it’s what you’ve got bottled up down there. It’s what you’ve been hiding from for the majority of your tiny life. It’s been haunting you, riding on your shoulders and in your gut like a parasite. You’ve always felt it. Its presence has been like the humming of a mysterious machine in the cellar. It waits there. Its glowing jaws beckon to you.

You have been blessed with mediocrity.

There it is, I’ve said it. You, me, everyone around us – we’re all stuck in the daily grind, converting calories and fond childhood memories into net-worth and assets by the hour. Every fucking day, day in and day out, we bleed gold and green and our tears are sold by the fluid ounce. Read them and weep, the hand we’ve been dealt is a goddamn joke and we’ve spent our entire lives trying to convince ourselves otherwise. It’s been with you and I since we legally came into this world and it’s not letting us go.

We’re at the bottom of the chain, and the only way out is down.

That’s where the Hesitate comes in. Forget the grind, forget time and its fleeting nature – now you’ve got all the time in the world. Seconds feel like minutes feel like hours feel like days and all the while with time stretched thin you couldn’t have a care in the world. The cement beneath your feet could crack and curl in and swallow you whole but the fall would be exhilarating and the rush of warm air would be comforting.

It’s a strong hit of oxygen in a crashing plane. The entire thing is going to come down eventually, so you might as well enjoy the ride. Forget the pension, forget the 401k and most of all forget the cars, houses and penthouse suites. We’re all going down in the same ship and while you’re wasting your time buying things and accumulating trash to be returned upon first notice of a flat line at your bedside, you could be having a good time.

Now, of course, like a young woman at the end of a bar, Hesitate won’t stay pretty for long, but the point is this: time is fleeting. Time will not be kind to you. It will destroy you. It’s as certain as anything can be in the whole of the universe. It’s the only law, and everyone must abide by it.

Ticking clocks never stop their march. Not for anyone. Political influence won’t save you here. The retirement fund won’t cover the bills in empty space. Time is disappearing by the second and as far as I’m concerned, the best thing I can do is stretch it to its bare limits.

Hesitate gives nature pause. Be still and catch your breath.

Room 2B (Reprise)

“How’s the anxiety?”

“Horrible.”

“Have you had any attacks recently?”

“Many.”

“What are you on right now?”

“My meds.”

Dr. Roberts casts a suspicious gaze in my direction, or perhaps toward something behind me. I’m not quite sure. I’m aware of my position in the room and the arms of the chair pressed against my forearms. I’m aware of the contact between my feet and the ground, and the laws that will keep them planted there until I exert the requisite energy to lift them from the cracked tiles. I’m aware of everything, but simultaneously numb to the effect upon me.

I look down and see my arms shaking in exertion, the veins in my hands bulging from my grip.

“You need to slow down.”

“I do not.”

“You know how this works. I can’t keep prescribing to you if you’re going to be popping pills in the waiting room.”

“So I won’t pop pills in the waiting room.” I picture the needle in all its indifferent glory.

With the Hesitate in effect, speech is an interesting phenomenon. Each word feels calculated, as if I’ve spent some time considering their order and their effect. The decision to respond to the slow drone of Dr. Roberts’ voice, however, seems eons past. I come upon each statement like a misshapen tree in a lonely field. I study the words as they slide from my lips, their syllables and inflections dancing in the stale air before me. The good doctor reacts. His hands move. The book sitting in the top right corner of the shelf is something I recognize. There are footsteps in the hall. The world is beautiful. Animals used to graze where I sit.

“I’ll give you enough to last a week. If the behavior you exhibited in the waiting room continues, I’ll have to cut you off.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

Dr. Roberts organizes my file, which has been strewn about on the table to create the illusion that he has any interest in my well-being. The sheets of paper are ornaments, decorations, and they are to be appreciated from a distance. Most of the file is missing. The manila folder is made of trees. They died alone on the mother-continent. We should have never left Africa.

“May I ask a question, Dr. Roberts?”

He loves to hear his title. Look at the modest ape silently acknowledge his position above me. Watch his posture slip and his body slide back into the ergonomic chair. Watch him fold his hands in his lap like a goddamn saint. He’s posing for a photo, but the photographer has forgotten we’re here.  He’s a crook. I’m a crook. You’re a crook. We’re crooks – crooks high on drugs and doctorates, stumbling our way through empty halls. The Hesitate is in full effect. My thoughts wander. This motherfucker and his folded hands. If he weren’t prescribing me painkillers I’d reach across the desk and choke him to death. I’d tell him to stop being so full of himself. Give me the goddamn drugs.

“Do you know the girl that Frasier was dragging around the halls today? Blonde hair. Nice shoes.”

Roberts becomes interested. His shoulders rise. The world is collapsing. Lord have mercy.

“I do. Does Aiden have eyes for damaged goods?”

“Does Dr. Roberts have her number?”

“No, I don’t have the number. You’re welcome to ask Dr. Frasier.”

“I’ll ask Dr. Frasier.”

But I won’t. I’ll be too distracted when I leave this room. I won’t be able to form sentences. I’ll balance myself on the walls. The world is collapsing. I’ll dance out the front door and sing in the rain like this is all a film in black and white. It’s all been prearranged and my every movement is a piece of the grand choreography. This is the overture. Prepare yourselves. The world is still collapsing. I’ve shoved a crowbar into the gears.

“You can make an appointment with the receptionist. I have a meeting to attend.”

I say goodbye, or maybe I don’t. I stand and turn on my heels and reach for the door, or maybe I stay right where I am. I nod to the doctor as he exits the room, or maybe I kick his feet out from beneath him and wrap a telephone chord around his neck.

The Hesitate is in full effect. The world is collapsing. I’ll never return to this room.

This makes me laugh.

            “I’ve seen stars and breaking waves; I’ve seen newborn predators and a sky waiting to open up. I’ve heard Mozart and birdsongs and I’ve seen the seasons come and go, but none of those things were so beautiful as you.”

            She stops spinning the straw in her drink to look me in the eye.

            “What I’m trying to say is, do you want to fuck?”