chapter five

 

 CHAPTER FIVE

 

"One gets a bad habit of being unhappy." George Elito, The Mill on the Floss.

 

 

 

The week passed by quickly, already it was time for another visit with the pleasant Dr. Visk. Time- when not measured- seemed to run ahead of you until you were either scrambling to catch up or lying still, allowing it to pass, willing it to speed by and leave you in a space between time.

 

I hardly even remembered the events that took place each day. I woke up despaired by the air whooshing in and out of my lungs, lived with my mind in a distorted world of false reality through the days and lay not quite awake or asleep each night.

 

I could feel the heavy bags of swollen, purple tissue beneath my eyes, the weakness in my muscles that forbad me to move, the hot, empty feeling that I had grown accustomed to having in my stomach from not eating.

 

I was sick, inside and out. My skin clammy and cold, my hair oily and un-brushed, wearing the same pair of worn track pants for a number of days I had lost track of. I could feel my skeleton through the thin, pasty skin, the bones rigid and frail, yet I couldn’t have cared less. Maybe death would come to free me soon.

 

Before the accident, death had terrified me, just the unknown aspect of it. What happens to your soul-if there is such a thing. Is there heaven and hell? If so, I surely would not want to sit in either for all of eternity, forever was too long; never ending. The same routine every day, same environment, same way of being. But if there wasn’t then what? Do you just cease existing? Do you just stop and there is nothing? It all ends just like that, no bright light, no memories, no life after death.

 

What if ghosts are real? Does that mean we all are chained to this planet, forced to walk unseen for all of time, even after the Earth can no longer house life, even if the Earth is destroyed, blown up or something, do we just remain as ghosts? Roaming nothingness forever?

 

I had always wished reincarnation was the answer, hoped that after you die, you are born to someone else, a new body, a new life with no knowledge of any former lives, that would be the least cruel of all possibilities. Never knowing any better, living over and over, repeating. But the world was a cruel place, and I doubted death would be any different. Maybe that’s what Dejevu is; our subconscious remembering from past lives, or letting us know we are on the right path.

 

Whatever happens, I no longer cared. There was no way of changing the outcome of the afterlife and so I embraced it, willed it to take me from the misery of this world, pluck me from the planet like a fish in the ocean amongst a million,

the other fish not knowing what had happened to that one, just knowing they were no longer there. How parallel our world was.

 

The world below ground zero has no clue about ours; sea life divided off by a thin layer of water, just as ours is by an ozone layer. Fish have no idea of how small there home is, how many other wonders there are out there, just as we are the same. We do not know what the universe holds, what if Earth, space, our whole universe is merely just a small lake in some other world? What if we are the small sea life to some other foreign place, what if we are the ones being fished from our planet, what if that’s what death really was.

 

A fish looks up through the water and sees nothing but the surface, the bright sun beating down from a distant place, they don’t see our world. When we look up, we see nothing but our ozone, with the same sun, both worlds so alike, so oblivious and fragile.

 

Whatever.

 

The doctor was taking his sweet time with the patient scheduled before me. The two of them sat in his office blabbing on past the time sectioned out for their session while I waited annoyed in the cramped waiting room.

 

On all sides people whispered soft murmurs amongst each other, speaking of upcoming family functions, school, work, nothing worth listening to.

 

“You look like hell.” A bitter female voice spoke beside me, making me jump. I wasn’t sure if the girl had spoken to me or to someone else in the room, so I sat silent.

 

“Helloo.” She said impatiently then flicked me on the shoulder, “Are you deaf too?”

I clenched my jaw together, grinding my teeth to avoid an outburst. If I retaliated, if I lost control here in the waiting room, Dr. Visk definitely wouldn’t make my visits any easier.

The girl sighed annoyed, “f****n’ people man. Think they’re too good or something.” She said the words to herself, but intended for me to hear.

 

“Excuse me?” my tone was irritated and I turned to face her.

“Oh, she speaks!” The girl laughed arrogantly and I sneered, “What’s the deal Red?”

I snorted, “Red? I’m brunette you moron.” I rolled my eyes and faced in front of me again.

“Well no s**t. You think I’m blind?” I could almost hear the grin and satisfaction with that intentional dig. “Called ya Red because of that look on your face, you look like you’re going to murder someone.”

“Yeah, you.” I growled the words but she only laughed.

“You can get in a lot of s**t walking around threatening people like that.”

I rolled my eyes and ignored her.

 

She leaned in closer so that only I could hear, “Seems like you could use something to calm you down...or pick you up, you know, whatever.”

I snorted and shook my head un-amused, “go bug someone else.”

“Serious man.” Her hot breath reeked of marijuana, the stench curling up my nostrils.

“Weed?” I chuckled lightly, “no thanks.”

 

The girl leaned away from me and snorted, “Are you slow or something?” She put her lips next to my ear again, her breath raising the hair on my neck as she spoke, “not weed stupid. Coke, E, mush, whatever you want my friend.”

I pulled away from her lips, “I said no thanks. Bud.”

She yawned, “suit yourself Red.”

 

“Quinn Leerey.” I stood up with the sound of my name being called by the doctors secretary- relieved to leave the addict behind- and walked down the hall to where the office was, my cane sweeping the ground in front.

 

“Good afternoon Quinn. Have a seat.” Visk was in his no nonsense mood. Great. I went in and sat in the worn chair so many others had sat in before me today.

 

He sighed and plunked his hands down on his desk            , “You don’t look so well.”

I shrugged across from him, “it’s the lighting.”

He sighed and leaned back with that familiar shrieking of the chair again, “how are you sleeping?”

I considered, “Like a baby. Well maybe not. Babies wake up a lot, more like a corpse.”

He ignored my antics, “have you been eating?”

I laughed tightly, “Have you?” He groaned; he wasn’t in the mood for my games, his patience running thin today.

“Quinn, I can’t help you if you don’t try, you need to help yourself first.”

I narrowed my eyes, “then don’t help me.”

 

Visk sighed; I could imagine him rubbing his forehead annoyed. “I was told you broke your nose last week, could you tell me about that?” Changing the subject, wise move sir.

 

My mother told him, of course. The traitor ratted me out to old doc here.

“Whatever happened to patient confidentiality?” I tried to act offended but it`s difficult to feel anything when deep down you didn`t care.

“That only applies to me. By law I can’t tell anyone anything you share with me in this office, but your mother, or anyone for that matter is free to share whatever they like about you with me.”

I rolled my eyes, “Oh great. I can just feel the trust building.”

 

The doctor leaned forward off the chair’s spine and rolled it closer to his desk. “So, what happened?”

“I’m sure my blabbing mother told you, don’t play dumb doc.” My humorous tone was gone, replaced by defiance and boredom.

“I want to hear your side of it.”

I rolled my eyes again, “I decided to walk without my cane. Didn’t work out so well.”

 

“Why don’t you think you were successful?”

“Jesus. Slow down.” I pursed my lips when he remained silent and sighed, “Because some a*****e knocked me down.”

 

Visk paused, getting up from his chair to walk slowly through the room. I followed the sound of his heavy footsteps over to the window, “What made you want to try it?”

I shrugged, “wouldn’t you?” It was true. I would have thought anyone in my position would have wanted to attempt it at one point or another, just to know you could, that you weren’t totally undependable to your own self.

 

“I suppose so. Did you get what you expected from it?”

I shrugged and slumped back in the chair, “I don’t know. I wasn’t really expecting anything.” Just hoping.

 

Visk made his way back to his chair and burdened the metal frame with his weight once again, “I’m concerned. You don’t seem too well; does your health not matter to you anymore?”

I frowned, “Not particularly, no.” At least I was being honest with the man; I had to get some points for that. I decided to challenge the fine doctor, leaning forward I scratched my forehead, “You know, I could ask you the same question. I don’t think you are overly concerned with your health any more then I am with mine.”

Visk was on the borderline of puzzlement and annoyance, “I don’t believe I follow you.”

I was more than happy to elaborate, “C’mon, don’t play dumb. It’s obvious you’ve been a smoker for some time, all those raunchy chemicals poisoning your body and yet you sit there and criticize me on health? I don’t really think you’re in any position to be scrutinizing. But hey, that’s just my opinion right?” I flopped back once again.

Visk sighed, “This is different.”

I grinned and nodded, “Oh.” I said the simple words with mocking sarcasm in the ‘whatever helps you sleep at night’ tone, the both of us knowing who won that round.

 

“I’m going to prescribe you something to help you sleep. It’s called Rozerem. I also want you to start taking meal supplements if you’re not going to eat.”

I shook my head, the thought of washing down white, chalky pills with thick, clumpy, medicine tasting milkshakes made me shudder and resist the urge to puke up my stomach acid.“No dice doc. I don’t want it.”

He scribbled a few words onto paper, then ripped the sheet from its stack, “your killing yourself, do you realize that?” He slid the paper across his desk for me to take.

I nodded, “Completely aware.” And counting on it.

 

                       ***

 

I sat alone in my bedroom, the little piece of paper stapled to a small sample in my lap.

This one’s on me.

Want more?

Maggie

 

The girl from Visk’s waiting room had slipped the morsel in my jacket pocket at some point in our conversation without me realising. I traced my finger tip along the indented lines in the paper; it was a good thing she wrote hard-unless she did it on purpose. Now I rolled the small amount of white powder, encased in a dime bag around in my fingers.

 

I had never gone through the drug phase during my highschool or University career, I tried weed once but considered it highly overrated. As for heavier drugs such as meth, ecstasy, PCP or the one that I now found in my possession; coke, I had never found any interest.

 

That was before, when I was the young, novice environmentalist and humanitarian at heart, back when I believed in seeing only the beauty in things, only the good. But now that no matter how hard I tried, beauty was impossible to come by, not only in sight but in mind and soul also, now that I had not one thing in the entire world to be happy about, this little sample of coke was very tempting.

 

I had nothing more to lose except my life, which was fine by me. This drug could do no more harm to me than had already been done. I tried to think of a reason not to try it, of course none came to mind, while the reasons for me to try it went on; maybe I would over dose and get my wish of death-although I was sure the small amount wouldn’t be able to accomplish such a task. It probably wasn’t even enough for one to get high off of.

 

Or maybe the drug would bring me some relief of this bland day to day way of ‘living’ I endured for over two years now, maybe I would be able to feel something different for once, something other than the sharp, unbearable pain that cut through me every second of my life.

 

I took the contents out of the dime bag and into my hand and felt around my room for a flat surface; I guided my fingertips over everything, rummaging through my closet, along the unvarnished wooden top of my dresser-the powder would hide in the thin cracks between the grains of wood if I used the dresser top- until I found a CD case laying on the floor, part way under my bed.

 

I pushed all the unmade comforters off the bed and lay the CD case on top of the mattress. Kneeling on the carpet in front of it, I carefully poured the drug onto the case and used the edge of the dime bag to push the powder into two, short, thin lines.

 

I had watched enough movies and had enough common sense to know what to do, how to use cocaine. Just snort right? I looked-without really seeing- at the two parallel lines of white dust for a long time. Never would I have ever been able to picture myself kneeling here over two lines of coke, but I would never have been able to picture myself being blind either.

 

I picked up the small rectangle of paper with the note on it. Great business card Maggie, leave a little sample to entice the target, to hook them until they call for more.

 

She obviously wasn’t too bright, she wouldn’t have just given out her name with physical evidence of trafficking to just any random people she might believe to look like potential buyers. Any one of the random people she encountered could be a cop or have police family members, or just be outright against drugs in general and turn her in.

 

I put the paper into the dime bag, picked up the CD case and dumped the powder in after it. Tonight wasn’t the night for drug experimentation. I put the dime bag of paraphernalia into my sweater pocket and climbed into bed sober. Maybe I would try it, maybe I wouldn’t.

 

Another day gone by without any progressive or un-progressive events to make anything different. The days mashed together into one blur of repetitive time, I wasn’t even sure what month it was let alone the day.

 

I knew my body was dying, I could feel it giving up, my physical self now following the dead end path my mind and soul had already reached. I had considered giving my body the final push to death myself many times, but how would I do it?

 

I definitely wouldn’t slit my wrists; that’s the cry for help way of going about it, and I was definitely beyond help. I could hang myself but then I would be faced with the location; my mother worked from home, she owned her own clothing company and so she sat at the computer for hours coming up with new t-shirt designs, so home was out of the picture. I don’t know if I liked the idea of hanging there waiting for someone to find me anyway.

 

 I could always go with the traditional gun in the mouth, but that could take some time before I`m able to get a gun; what with needing a permit and all. The only way I deemed probable would be to jump from a bridge or something of that sort, or jump out in the way of a big, stampeding transport. A train could suffice.

 

I sighed, lying on top of my bed, nothing but a thin sheet separating me from the bare mattress. I didn`t bother pulling my blankets back on; I wouldn`t sleep at all tonight anyway. I had no freedom from the world, unable to sleep. Completely alone and miserable.

 

My mother had gone and picked up my prescription against my will, urging me to comply with the doctor and take the sleep sedatives. The recommended dose; eight milligrams taken thirty minutes before bed. The bottle sat beside my bed, on the top of my dresser unopened. I reached over and felt around for the medication and shook the pills around inside when my fingers finally wrapped around the plastic bottle. The label was in brail, which I traced my fingers over many times. I laughed, what a smart doctor I had, giving a depressed blind girl a bottle of potentially deadly sleeping pills. Maybe that`s how I would kill myself, down the whole bottle. Karma is a b***h doc.

 

Reviews

[Luna Northstar]

I love this book. I love seeing her view on death; something I never thought about before. Its so sad, but you have a twist of humor to it. I feel so bad for Quinn. I wonder what ever happened to Jaycee, and hope he'll make another appearance soon. I'm definitely loving this book so far.

[-Jaime-]

Loved it, you're definitely getting more comfortable with the story as you write it. I was a little bit thrown off by the how the whole philosophical argument would fit in the story; until I saw that "whatever" then I couldn't stop laughing. The whole argument with Dr. Visk was great (the sarcasm was perfect). Also, the whole drug use twist was great, it takes the story in a new direction and keeps it from getting repetitive.

I think just some minor editing (tightening, and a couple grammar errors) is about the only thing that needs work.

Great job.