Tag Archives: drugs
She had been a robust child.
Years later, however, she found herself prone to serious illness and disease. On Christmas several years ago, I nursed her through pneumonia, strep throat, and a host of other dangerous afflictions.
As terrible as it all was, watching her die (It was inevitable. If not this illness, then surely that one, or that one.), we benefitted handsomely on, as we came to call it, PharmDay. We would put on our best farmerwear – a hard thing for a couple of middle-class snobs to accomplish – and head to the pharmacy. The whole thing was terribly fun.
Back at home, we would dump her medicine on the kitchen table and play with it. Small pills became stones from which we erected mighty pyramids; other pills became grenades as we tried to blow each other up. Still others we simply abused with alcohol.
She maintained until the end that she would rather spend her time this way than filling little boxes – one for each day of the week – with medicine.
And so we did. And one day she overdosed on a little green drug.
I tried carrying on the tradition without her. But it just wasn’t as fun.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, death, disease, drugs, flash fiction, grenade, love, medicine, overdose, pharmacy, pills, pyramid, relationships, Short Fiction, short story | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
Experience taught me that antidepressant medication keeps the world’s miseries at arm’s length. Like living in a bubble, or being strung out all the time.
Experience also taught me that emotional invincibility is a dangerous pursuit, the limit too easily pursued. In my lesser moments I fell in love with women just to break their hearts. Their tears, spite, and venom had no effect. I betrayed friends, family; I did terrible things so the women I loved would vanish from my life. Just to see.
Alone and unfeeling, I swore off love and antidepressants. Without love and its complications, I wouldn’t need an escape. Without the sharp, poisonous women I crave, I would have no reason to protect myself from the consequences of my desires.
I met a woman, demure and caring, fragile. All bangs, yoga pants, and pumpkin spice lattes.
She stayed over. She stayed over a lot. I hid my pills away.
I woke one morning to find her in the bathroom, huddled over the sink. Her hair was disheveled, frightening. She turned toward me, exposing her demon within.
I backed away and hurriedly fetched my dusty vial of antidepressants. I was ready to fall in love again.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, antidepressant, demon, depression, drugs, flash fiction, love, medication, relationships, Short Fiction, short story, women | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
He marched out to sea, leaving his luxury tennis shoes in a pile on the sand. While the other beachgoers retreated in light of the approaching storm, K surged forward.
She had returned. Now was the time.
He waded deeper into the water, felt the currents tug at his body.
She vanished into the sea during their honeymoon. Upset about something trivial, she threw herself into the water to spite K, to punish him, full of violence and rage. And it worked. He slid into cocaine addiction and ridiculous shopping sprees. He retreated into himself, blamed himself, cursed himself. He tried to kill himself. Then he bought luxury tennis shoes.
Yet rumors swirled: the sea was different now, violent, unforgiving, merciless. Ships were lost sometimes; people drowned sometimes; jellyfish and sharks and sea urchins attacked sometimes.
He dismissed the rumors at first. But love got the better of him. For he loved her still, after all this time.
One day he went to the sea, to see for himself, this violence, this rage. But the sea was calm, compassionate. He returned the day following, etc.
With each day, his desire for her violence and rage grew. And he waited – always at the edge of the water, always in his luxury tennis shoes.
It was her, today, churning the sea, tempting the weather. He ran his fingers through the seaweed, thinking of her muddy brown hair.
“All of this for you,” he muttered to nobody as the sea pulled him down.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, cocaine, drugs, flash fiction, jelly fish, love, ocean, relationships, romance, sea, sea urchin, shark, shoes, shopping, Short Fiction, short story, suicide, water | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
Never did I think I would love, for love was a ridiculous, childish concept.
But I loved, finally, in spite of myself. I loved, I knew, because I thought only of her, always. Because she was my default, my origin.
She says, “Fuck you, K,” in a voice that craves verbal violence, disappearing from view even though I can see her, touch her. I reach, she recoils – a perverse dance. She looks at me with the eyes a stranger, yanking her engagement ring from her finger, throwing it out the window.
I go outside and sift through the bushes. I find her ring floating in a dog’s water dish.
I pretend I am not relieved and go back inside. She is dead, having swallowed my pain killers.
I put her ring on her lithe, cold finger. I press her lithe, cold finger to my lips.
Then I go to sleep, taking the same pain killers. I dream of our wedding. Our families are present. We are happy.
I wake up, see her dead body at the kitchen table, coax myself back to sleep. Again our wedding, our families, our happiness.
I wake, finish my pain killers, kiss my phantom bride.
1 Comment | tags: affect, death, dog, drugs, flash fiction, love, marriage, pain, relationship, Short Fiction, short story, sleep, water, wedding | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
“May I please have my eyes back,” asked the angel. I wasn’t sure how she knew I had them (I found them in the gutter; the dazzling green of the iris caught the sun and blinded me), but her voice was stern. I reached into the breast pocket of my jacket and handed over her eyes. The angel and I had sex and I fell in love.
Sometime later the devil came to my door, offering a cure for my heartache. “Take this,” the devil offered, extending a hand that gripped a small pill. “She will leave your mind as will the sorrow she has caused.”
I retrieved the pill from the devil’s outstretched palm. “It’s a special compound just for you,” the devil said. Small and rectangular in shape, the pill had a “K” in its center.
The devil saw me hesitate. “Or take this” – the devil produced another pill – “and be haunted by her memory until you die.”
I retrieved the additional pill and placed it on my palm next to the first pill. They were identical.
“But you may not have them both,” said the devil impatiently, glaring at me with eyes a penetrating shade of green.
2 Comments | tags: addiction, death, devil, drugs, eyes, green, love, relationships, romance, satan, sex | posted in Her, Him, Me, Short Fiction
She had a constellation of shitty stars tattooed on her body. They were cartoonish and lumpy, the shape of holiday cookies. I followed them down her spine and around the bottom of her left torso, where they then descended and coiled loosely the length of her left leg.
“These are awful,” I said. She shrugged and rolled out of my bed, complaining about needing to “wash [my] scent” off. That was our first and last conversation. I closed my eyes and when I opened them—evidently much later—she had left. My wallet was gone and I found a syringe in my bathroom.
I drove to the crumbling neighborhood where I first saw her only a few hours prior. But now I saw only drug addicts milling around and a woman bobbing her head to an inaudible rhythm. I called from my vehicle, interrupting the woman. She swore at me and displayed something sharp. I drove off, fretting.
At a loss, I slithered into a tattoo shop and demanded my own constellation from the worst artist on staff. He readied his inkwells. “I’ll give you an extra thousand if you tattoo me with this,” I said, offering him the syringe.
Leave a comment | tags: addiction, affect, art, drug addict, drugs, flash fiction, ink, money, needle, prostitution, relationships, sex, Short Fiction, short story, syringe, tattoo shop, tattoos | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
K, though dying, was in the best shape of his life. “The TSA agent asked if I was a gymnast,” he boasted the other day. “I told him I was just a narcissist.”
K wasn’t just a narcissist. I don’t remember the name of his illness, but it was fatal. Still full of vigor, he paraded around in his Under Armour, revealing every crevice and striation in his torso, like an aspiring Mister Universe. In another several months, he would become hollow, like a drug addict. What would the TSA agent say then?
When he took too much medication, K would rant about “beauty in decay.” Then he would hit the gym extra hard. K read too much philosophy—chubby men expounding on a reality they know nothing about. Have you ever watched somebody die, I hissed once, angrily. We disagreed a lot these days.
But K was right. He had more girlfriends than I could count. “Do they know you’ll be dead soon,” I asked after he regaled me with a story of a hefty blonde.
“Of course. They wouldn’t be interested in me otherwise.”
For the first time in a long while, I found myself agreeing with him.
Leave a comment | tags: addict, addiction, affect, death, drugs, flash fiction, gymnast, illness, Mister Universe, narcissism, relationships, sex, Short Fiction, short story, TSA, women | posted in Him, Me, Short Fiction
Six months had passed since I put her portrait in the trunk of my car.
“Why is this still in here,” she asked not long after, her hands full of groceries. “So I always have you in my trunk,” I replied.
But her portrait–all glamour and heavy eye make-up–soon became covered in dust and the fine wood frame in which she was encased became scuffed.
Still, I was so used to her back there that the thought of hanging her on the wall was mildly unnerving.
We had a fight two days ago. She accused me of stealing her old wedding ring to finance my cocaine habit.
I called her three times. I sent twelve text messages.
Silence.
I opened the trunk yesterday morning to fetch my umbrella. I gave her portrait a knowing look, thinking, “What the fuck is your problem?” That’s when I noticed that her previously immaculate smile was now twisted into a scream.
“Well if she’s dead,” I said to myself, “now’s the time to steal her wedding ring.”
When she was found this afternoon in the trunk of a new Mercedes I felt mildly guilty, though I didn’t really know why: Fucking rich people.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, car, drugs, fight, flash fiction, mercedes, picture, portrait, rain, relationships, Short Fiction, short story, wealth | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
“Did you know people sell these?” K took a tablet from the orangish vial on the counter and held it between two fingers the way you inspect a small bug. “They call it ‘hillbilly heroin.'”
“Yeah, but I need those,” I said. “You know–for pain.”
K wasn’t listening. “One of these can go for, like, $20.”
I rolled my eyes: “Can’t you find something else to sell illegally?”
“No,” he retorted. He snatched my perscription and left.
I sank into despair, knowing that my doctor would never buy the story I needed to sell him.
……….
K came to my door a few days later, smiling widely.
“Can I have my medicine back now?” I asked.
“I sold them. We need more.”
“That’s not going to happen. There are rules to guard against this exact thing.”
“Yes it is.” Then I noticed the hammer in his hand.
“Wait,” I screamed. I pleaded. But K insisted it was the only way. I backed away. Then he pulled a handful of money from his pocket, thrusting it into my hands. “This is your half.”
He raised the hammer.
I closed my eyes and envisioned prostitutes and Rolexes. I don’t remember what happened after that.
Leave a comment | tags: addiction, affect, drugs, flash fiction, hammer, heroin, hillbilly, money, pain, relationships, Rolex, sex, Short Fiction, short story, women | posted in Him, Me, Short Fiction
She opens her briefcase. “Why you keep doing this,” she asks in accented English. I can’t tell if she really wants to know.
“All I have left are fat ones. If you wanting pretty ones, you must ask early. They go first. Bitchy ones gone next for whatever reason–I don’t understand why. Then nice ones, girl next door. And so on. You wait till end of day, you stuck with fat women. Sorry. I told you before, you know?”
She readies her syringe.
I feel them flood my bloodstream. At this point it doesn’t matter what they look like, or if they’re nice or whatever. I collapse in a heap of myself, knowing that I’ll have to get off the floor momentarily. Knowing that, because the real pleasure is not in the high but in the anticipation of it, the fun is over.
“You need real woman,” she says as she collects my money.
I shrug, wondering if she’s flirting. “But what will you do without me,” I ask by way of humor.
“Don’t need you,” she replies. “All men are pathetic. Many customers.” She leaves.
I touch the hole in my arm and nod emphatically at nobody in particular.
Leave a comment | tags: accent, addiction, bitchy, disease, drugs, fat, girl next door, language, men, relationships, sex, Short Fiction, short story, syringe, voyeurism, women | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
“My name is K. And I’m an addict.”
He didn’t elaborate on the nature of his addiction and nobody bothered to ask. The people in the room probably presumed that his addiction was some permutation of theirs: drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, whatever. K had been attending these meetings for several weeks now, hoping that being part of a community of junkies would somehow cure his junkiness. Today was the first day he bothered to speak.
“Hello, K,” said a mass of voices. K sunk into his chair, knowing that his addiction was his alone, and that all the other addicts could never understand. Vulnerability suddenly exposed, K needed a fix. Fuck this place, he muttered to himself, as he snuck out during a coffee break.
……….
“It’s been a while,” said the voice on the other end of the phone, as though it knew K was on the brink of relapse.
K apologized and then pleaded for a fix up. “Pretty ones this time, please,” he added. As K reveled in the remorse and worthlessness of relapse, he envisioned the drug taking its effect: countless microscopic women riding his veins, soothing his pain with their kisses.
A knock at the door.
Leave a comment | tags: addiction, affect, drugs, flash fiction, pain, rehab, relapse, relationships, short story, syringe, women | posted in Him, Man, Short Fiction
“She was my heroin,” I said gazing into the pond. “I was addicted,” I continued the metaphor, as I continued gazing into the pond. A few ducks nodded in tandem. Most swam away, bored, no doubt, with the same story told by every guy who sits alone on a bench by a pond.
One duck spoke. “Tell me more,” it said, and by the by, we got to know each other. I invited the duck over for dinner. It accepted my invitation, probably out of sympathy.
……
I told K about my unexpected friendship. “What should I serve for dinner,” I asked him.
“Duck,” K replied feigning seriousness. We laughed in that way you laugh about things like cannibalism.
I served pasta instead. The duck was a gracious guest. We ate mostly in silence, each unsure how to proceed. “You know,” the duck finally said, “I thought you invited me over so you could eat me.”
We laughed in the way K and I laughed earlier. “I’m a vegetarian,” I explained. Then I attacked and killed it.
……
I called her for the first time in a long time. “I made you duck,” I whispered to the voice on the other end.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, appetite, cuisine, death, dinner, drugs, duck, food, heroin, murder, pond, relationships, vegetarian, water | posted in Her, Me
