Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2016 2:56:09 GMT -5
So, I'm hoping to write something for King of the Recluse, but I haven't written a short story in... a long time. At least a year, probably two? I'm used to writing worldbuilding stuff and I've had a lot of difficulty even coming up with a half-comprehensible idea for a short story. So tonight I decided to shake the rust off and just dive into something. I don't think it's very good and I don't have any real interest in editing it or anything, so I'm just posting it here exactly as is, written in one go, without any revisions or changes. Completely stream-of-consciousness. It's just an exercise, really. But. Why write something and not bother to share it at all? So, here it is:
“Are you almost ready?”
“Yeah, I’m just fixing my eyeliner. I fucked it up. Are we doing okay on time?”
I looked at the corner of my computer screen. 10:45. GoogleMaps said it was a 14 minute drive. I’d make it in 10. “Yeah, we’re fine. Just askin’.”
“…hey, did you, uh… did you take that stuff?”
“Uh, yeah. Yep.”
“How, uh. How long do you have until that kicks in?”
I looked back down at the corner of my computer screen. 10:46. “Maybe thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be done in just a sec.”
“No rush.”
I turned off my computer, flicked off the lamp at my desk, and walked into the hallway. I leaned against the corner where the hallway spills into the living room and looked to Brooke, in the corner of the room, sat at her vanity, leaned forward on her elbows, her ass lifted an inch off of the cushion. Her gaze averted through the mirror to catch mine, a smirk, and back again, her focus returned to the little plastic, black brush that painted her eyelids.
I watched the little particles of dust that floated down through the sunbeam that illuminated her vanity, its varnished wood glossy and dark. I looked down at the patch of discoloration on the carpet from that glass of iced tea last summer. I saw her Chuck Taylors by the door, scuffed and worn. The little aloe plant on the windowsill, one of its limbs chopped short from when I’d grabbed a skillet straight from the oven and couldn’t use my left hand for two days. I saw her ass in new, denim jeans, hovering an inch over the floral seat of the vanity stool.
I felt my tongue moving around in my mouth, licking my clenched teeth. I felt my heartbeat in my chest. My focus dissolved back and I saw my hands and body and became intimately aware that I was a living, human being and that this was happening.
It was kicking in a little faster than I’d expected. That was fine. Everything was fine.
“Alright, let’s go,” she said, leaping from the vanity and over to the couch, leaning over the arm to grab her shoes from the floor beside. “You good, babe?”
I snapped awake. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, we’re good.” I snatched my keys from the bowl by the door. “Meet you downstairs?”
“Yeah.”
We bought our tickets and made our way through the doors of the theatre. The lights were bright and pop music was playing faintly over the murmur of a few hundred voices. Brooke found us some nice aisle seats while I admired the colors of the carpet – reds and blues and golds all intricately blended in a way that reminded me of Persian rugs. The intricate gold carvings that emblazoned the stage were ancient and regal. This was a special place. This was a holy place.
“Hon, sit.”
My eyes swung around to Brooke, sitting down, her coat on her lap. I looked at the empty seat beside her and then at her, looking at me.
“Right, yeah, sorry,” I said and fell into the chair.
“Do you wanna look at the program?” she asked, holding up a little pamphlet printed on thin, blue paper.
“Uh, sure.”
‘Waiting for Godot – a play by the Schooool of FineArts at the Unvrsty ov Cicaggo
Dircd by Mrkrkr Thothothotho
I blinked rapidly, then flipped it open in the hopes to find pictures – there were none. The words were worthless to me. Handing it immediately back to Brooke would only make me seem insane, so I stared at it for another twenty seconds or four minutes, contemplating my own well-being and acutely studying my heartbeat.
I handed the pamphlet back to her and adjusted my seating position in a hopeless attempt to find some meager amount of physical comfort. My skin squirmed and my armpits were hot and humid and itchy. My nose fidgeted involuntarily and anything I touched or scratched immediately initiated a new itch somewhere else. I sat motionless in fear of endlessly scratching every inch of my body and, at some point in my relentless suffering, the lights went down in the theatre and a wonderful, cool breeze came with it.
Night had fallen and I was soothed. A wave of warmth and lightness flooded my body and my limbs took on the quality of helium balloons. My jaw unclenched for the first time in what felt like months, and my face was drenched in a heavy euphoria, my eyelids slinking half-way down. This was a great place to be. What a beautiful theatre. It’s dark and the play is starting. All I have to do is sit here and watch a play for like two hours – how amazing. What a great evening. I turned and looked down at Brooke and she looked up at me. Hazel eyes and black mascara and pink lips and smooth skin, little pores, little hairs, amethyst earrings, her sparkly shirt, her little body, her little legs. What a beautiful companion.
She leaned in and pursed her lips and I kissed her without thinking about it and wondered how I did that and smiled and turned back to the stage just as even more lights went off and the curtain pulled open.
The bathroom mirror was grimey, speckled with little dots where water had splashed it. Stray, oily finger marks smudged over my reflection. My eyes looked dark and sunken. My skin was oddly pale. I pushed my index finger into my cheek and it felt like a warm water balloon. I noticed the sink was running and shut it off. The water smelled fresh and clean, like the ocean. Pure water. Pure, clear, beautiful, liquid water available for all of us whenever we want or need it. I turned the faucet back on and leaned over the sink, cupping my hands under it and catching the water, pouring it into my mouth. It refreshed my whole body and I felt cool and bright again. I drank more water and dried my hands and looked at myself again.
I remembered I had to piss and turned around to the toilet.
Look at all that water. What a waste. Why do we pee into so much water? There’s got to be a better way to do that.
I looked at my dick and averted my gaze intentionally. That was a little too weird. Don’t think about penises. Don’t think about sex and putting penises into vaginas. Don’t think about peeing out of penises. The human body is essentially just a tube and don’t think about that. Just finish what you’re doing and don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about not worrying about it.
I peed a little on the seat and pulled off a piece of toilet paper and wiped it and shut the lid and flushed. I took a long, slow, deep breath and wondered if I’d been breathing too quickly and shallowly. A deep breath felt good. My chest felt big and hollow. I felt my heartbeat.
I turned the cold, golden knob and stepped out into the hallway. It was dark and smelled like cinnamon. There was a painting on the wall opposite me of a vineyard. I could hear the party downstairs, laughter, glasses clinking. Brooke Aunt Michelle’s sharp, bitter voice.
Footsteps on the stairs. My neck swung and I saw Brooke’s head pop up over the steps. “Oh hey.”
“Hey! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, uh. Could we maybe…”
“You wanna go?”
“Yeah, you wanna go soon?”
“Yeah, lemme pee and I’ll say my goodbyes and stuff. I’m ready to get out of here anyway. Aunt Michelle and my mom are -so- hammered.”
“Yeah, I. I heard.”
“I love you!” Brooke smiled and leaned in and I leaned in and we kissed briefly. Her fingers stroked my arm and she turned quickly into the bathroom and closed the door. I was alone in the hallway and looked at the vineyard and looked down the stairs.
“The only really important question is: what have the Gods been saying to us that we’ve been completely ignoring? What’s the thing that we’re all going to say in a few days: oh man! Of course! How’d we miss it? Of course, of course.”
“So you’re saying everything is fine, but we just don’t know it yet?” Estragon asked.
“Everything is always fine until you’re dead.”
I sank into a pool on the ground in the corner of the room. Someone held out a joint from the corner of my vision and my hand reached out for it. It was small and soft and warm and a little wet and I took a long, deep drag and held it out in the opposite direction it was handed to me until somehow, magically, it was taken away.
I looked out at the audience. The crowd was dimly lit by the stage lights. I saw Brooke sitting out in the crowd, the empty seat beside her. Her expression was indiscernible to me.
“Let’s get someone from the crowd,” I said, shoving myself, wobbly, to my feet.
“Alright,” Estragon said. He stepped out to the edge of the stage and leaned over, a hand cupped over his eyes to block out the glare of the lights. With his other hand, he pointed a finger to a woman out in the crowd. “Miss? You, there, in the green dress? Would you be willing to come up on stage for a moment?”
The audience applauded and I wandered up to the microphone stand.
“Hey, Michelle,” I said.
Brooke’s Aunt Michelle made her way up onto the stage, a glass of red wine in her hand, and Estragon handed her his microphone.
“We are all born mad,” she said. “Some remain so.”
I shook my head on instinct. “But that is not the question. Why are we here? That is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come.”
I backed out of our driveway and adjusted the car seat. Brooke was the last one to drive the car and my knees were pressed up against the steering wheel. I reached out a hand to adjust the rear-view mirror.
“What’s the name of the play we’re seeing?”
“Uh, Waiting for Godot. It’s a Samuel Beckett thing.”
“The same Samuel Beckett that did those really weird..?”
“Yeah. This one is less weird than those ones,” I laughed. “Or, at least, it’s supposed to be. But hey, the tickets were free, right?”
“Yeah, I’m just excited to go out and see a play with you.”
I smiled ear-to-ear. “Aw, babe, I’m excited, too. It’ll be fun.”
“Yeah. Then… we have to go to my parents’ place. That’ll be less fun.”
I shrugged, flicking the turn signal and glancing down the road. “Eh, whatever. It’ll be fine. Get drunk if you want. I’ll be sober enough to drive home by then.”
“God, no,” she laughed. “I can’t get drunk around my family. When I get drunk I get talkative and when I get talkative… no. Not around them.”
“…yeah, that’s probably a good point. Is your Aunt Michelle gonna’ be there?”
“Yup. And all her kids. And Aunt Carol, and Uncle Tom and his new wife-thing-lady.”
A hand reached from the back seat of the car and handed me a joint. Small, soft, warm, and a little wet. I took it and drew a long, deep hit and passed it to Brooke.
Wide, open vineyards sprawled out before us and our little Honda struggled to climb the hills, the transmission shifting sluggishly as the engine churned. Cool, clean water poured through my fingers and drenched the wheel, dripping onto my jeans. Brooke leaned up onto her elbows on the dashboard. Her eyes reflected in the windshield met mine and she smirked.
“Did you get the tickets?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she smiled, holding up a pair of small, white ticket stubs.
I picked up a small, round cookie, glazed with white icing. Brooke’s Uncle Tom grabbed one, too. “What are these, almond?” he asked.
I turned it over in my hand. “We’re about to find out,” I said, taking a bite. It was sickeningly sweet and dry and my whole attention turned to my mouth, full of crumbs and sugar. My jaw was tight and sticky, my tongue huge and impossibly dry, unmanageably awkward.
“You’re Brooke’s fiancé, right?”
“Yeah. We met last year at the, uh… at that baby-shower thing? Jayme’s baby shower.”
“Oh! Oh, hey, that’s right. That’s good. You’re a good guy. Brooke’s a great girl. She’s lucky to have you.”
“Thanks, Tom,” I said, finally managing to swallow a hard, mashed lump of cookie. I set it down on a Christmas-themed paper plate and the sounds of the room came flooding in. A dozen voices all at once. Tom said something else, his voice completely drowned by the intolerable volume of the room. I could feel the food digesting immediately, my abdomen churning and cramped.
“Hey, sorry, I’ll be right back.” The words fell out of my mouth and into the mess of noise and anxiety that filled the room and I made my way through the bodies and sound and to the steps upstairs. To a quiet bathroom to breathe. Where I could hear my own voice.
I opened the small, plastic bag and poured out the fine, white, crystalline powder onto my desk. I ran my finger through the inside of the bag, the skin of my index finger collecting the dust that clung to the inside of it. I admired my finger for a moment and licked it – the taste was incredibly sour and bitter and I winced and took a swig from the glass of water next to my keyboard.
“Alright, I’m almost ready, let me just touch-up my make-up and we can go, okay?”
“Yeah, sounds good, hon,” I said through the bedroom door.
I pulled my wallet out of my jeans and drew my driver’s license from it. I used the little plastic card to push the white powder into a single, thin line, pushing and pulling at the sides until it was neat, even, and symmetrical. Then a five-dollar bill, rolled in my fingers like a joint, a perfect cylinder. I gripped each end of it to contain the loose corners and hovered it over the powder for a moment, admiring it.
One deep, long inhale. Tickling the sinuses, sharp and warm and cold all at once. You’re rarely conscious of the ability to sense the deep cavities of the skull until you’ve propelled an eighth of a gram of a substance into it. Another quick snort or two. An immediate loosening of the sinuses, wet and runny, a bitterness at the back of the throat. Heart racing immediately. Swallow hard and the drip starts – the tingling, frustrating sensation at the back of the tongue.
I ran my face through my hands and slid onto the floor.
“Nothing to be done,” Estragon said to me.
“I’m beginning to come ‘round to that opinion. All my life I’ve tried to put it from me, saying: be reasonable, you haven’t tried everything. And I resumed the struggle.” I looked up at Estragon, the theatre’s lights casting his shadow down upon me. I rested in the cool darkness of his presence. “So there you are again.”
“Am I?” he questioned.
“I’m glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.”
“Me too.”
“Together again at last,” I smiled, offering up a hand, and he grabbed it and lifted me from the ground. I spun my desk chair and fell back into it. “We’ll have to celebrate this. But how?”
“Not now, not now.”
My nose began to run again and I sniffed hard. The drip poured down the back of my throat. I blinked at my computer screen, a bright and abrasive light.
“Are you almost ready?” I called out to Brooke.
“Yeah, I’m just fixing my eyeliner,” she said.
“Nice to see you again, Tom,” I said, shaking his hand.
“You take care of Brooke, now, you hear?” he smiled.
Brooke’s mother came up beside me and offered her arms up for a hug. I fell into her embrace. “Thanks for stopping over. Come by anytime. Let’s do dinner sometime, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “That’d be great.”
“Bye everyone!” Brooke called out, pulling her Chuck Taylors onto her feet by the door.
“Bye, honey!” her mom replied. “Love you bunches!”
“Love you too, mum.”
I wandered over to her and sat on the bottom step, pulling my shoes on.
“Are you good to drive?” Brooke asked, her voice hushed. “I didn’t drink much, if you wanted me to.”
“I’m good,” I said, fumbling with the laces of my shoes.
“Cool,” she smiled, standing. “Ready when you are.”
I followed her outside, calling out one last goodbye. We got into the car and I backed out of the driveway onto the little street, dimly lit by a lone streetlamp.
“So that’s done and over with,” I said.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Brooke said.
“Oh? Good. I thought Michelle was wearing you pretty thin.”
“Hmm? Oh, no, I. I mean. It wasn’t as bad as those other Beckett plays, that’s for sure.”
I looked over to her and back to the sprawling highway ahead.
“Now we just have to deal with my family,” Brooke sighed. She ran her fingers through her hair and then reached down to fetch a cigarette from her purse. “We don’t have to stay long if you don’t want to. I probably won’t want to stay much longer than you.”
My eyes caught the exit for her parents’ house and I merged into the exiting lane. “Yeah, I mean, we’ll see. We’ll see how we feel when we get there.”
I pulled into our driveway, flicked the headlights off, and turned the key in the ignition, the engine slowing to a halt.
“What a night,” Brooke said, yawning. She unbuckled herself, grabbed her purse, and stepped out of the car. “You coming?”
I looked up at her and back down to the steering wheel, my hands and jeans wet, the theatre lights bright above. “Yeah,” I muttered, unbuckling, opening the car door, pressing the electronic lock on the key.
I followed her up the stairs to our house, inside, dark and cool and quiet. She plopped onto the couch, tugging her Chuck Taylors from her feet. “Isn’t it good to be home?” she smiled. Her shoes tossed onto the floor, she sat up and held out her arms. I fell into her embrace and we kissed.
“Are you still… feeling it?”
“A little,” I admitted.
“In an instant, all will vanish,” she whispered. “And we’ll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness.”
I looked away, to Michelle, microphone in one hand, wineglass in the other. I looked out to the crowd, to the stain on the carpet, to the sprawling vineyards, dimly lit by the bathroom light peeking through the cracked door.
“Tomorrow, when I wake… or think I do… what shall I say of today?”
Brooke reached out and touched my hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Are you almost ready?”
“Yeah, I’m just fixing my eyeliner. I fucked it up. Are we doing okay on time?”
I looked at the corner of my computer screen. 10:45. GoogleMaps said it was a 14 minute drive. I’d make it in 10. “Yeah, we’re fine. Just askin’.”
“…hey, did you, uh… did you take that stuff?”
“Uh, yeah. Yep.”
“How, uh. How long do you have until that kicks in?”
I looked back down at the corner of my computer screen. 10:46. “Maybe thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be done in just a sec.”
“No rush.”
I turned off my computer, flicked off the lamp at my desk, and walked into the hallway. I leaned against the corner where the hallway spills into the living room and looked to Brooke, in the corner of the room, sat at her vanity, leaned forward on her elbows, her ass lifted an inch off of the cushion. Her gaze averted through the mirror to catch mine, a smirk, and back again, her focus returned to the little plastic, black brush that painted her eyelids.
I watched the little particles of dust that floated down through the sunbeam that illuminated her vanity, its varnished wood glossy and dark. I looked down at the patch of discoloration on the carpet from that glass of iced tea last summer. I saw her Chuck Taylors by the door, scuffed and worn. The little aloe plant on the windowsill, one of its limbs chopped short from when I’d grabbed a skillet straight from the oven and couldn’t use my left hand for two days. I saw her ass in new, denim jeans, hovering an inch over the floral seat of the vanity stool.
I felt my tongue moving around in my mouth, licking my clenched teeth. I felt my heartbeat in my chest. My focus dissolved back and I saw my hands and body and became intimately aware that I was a living, human being and that this was happening.
It was kicking in a little faster than I’d expected. That was fine. Everything was fine.
“Alright, let’s go,” she said, leaping from the vanity and over to the couch, leaning over the arm to grab her shoes from the floor beside. “You good, babe?”
I snapped awake. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, we’re good.” I snatched my keys from the bowl by the door. “Meet you downstairs?”
“Yeah.”
We bought our tickets and made our way through the doors of the theatre. The lights were bright and pop music was playing faintly over the murmur of a few hundred voices. Brooke found us some nice aisle seats while I admired the colors of the carpet – reds and blues and golds all intricately blended in a way that reminded me of Persian rugs. The intricate gold carvings that emblazoned the stage were ancient and regal. This was a special place. This was a holy place.
“Hon, sit.”
My eyes swung around to Brooke, sitting down, her coat on her lap. I looked at the empty seat beside her and then at her, looking at me.
“Right, yeah, sorry,” I said and fell into the chair.
“Do you wanna look at the program?” she asked, holding up a little pamphlet printed on thin, blue paper.
“Uh, sure.”
‘Waiting for Godot – a play by the Schooool of FineArts at the Unvrsty ov Cicaggo
Dircd by Mrkrkr Thothothotho
I blinked rapidly, then flipped it open in the hopes to find pictures – there were none. The words were worthless to me. Handing it immediately back to Brooke would only make me seem insane, so I stared at it for another twenty seconds or four minutes, contemplating my own well-being and acutely studying my heartbeat.
I handed the pamphlet back to her and adjusted my seating position in a hopeless attempt to find some meager amount of physical comfort. My skin squirmed and my armpits were hot and humid and itchy. My nose fidgeted involuntarily and anything I touched or scratched immediately initiated a new itch somewhere else. I sat motionless in fear of endlessly scratching every inch of my body and, at some point in my relentless suffering, the lights went down in the theatre and a wonderful, cool breeze came with it.
Night had fallen and I was soothed. A wave of warmth and lightness flooded my body and my limbs took on the quality of helium balloons. My jaw unclenched for the first time in what felt like months, and my face was drenched in a heavy euphoria, my eyelids slinking half-way down. This was a great place to be. What a beautiful theatre. It’s dark and the play is starting. All I have to do is sit here and watch a play for like two hours – how amazing. What a great evening. I turned and looked down at Brooke and she looked up at me. Hazel eyes and black mascara and pink lips and smooth skin, little pores, little hairs, amethyst earrings, her sparkly shirt, her little body, her little legs. What a beautiful companion.
She leaned in and pursed her lips and I kissed her without thinking about it and wondered how I did that and smiled and turned back to the stage just as even more lights went off and the curtain pulled open.
The bathroom mirror was grimey, speckled with little dots where water had splashed it. Stray, oily finger marks smudged over my reflection. My eyes looked dark and sunken. My skin was oddly pale. I pushed my index finger into my cheek and it felt like a warm water balloon. I noticed the sink was running and shut it off. The water smelled fresh and clean, like the ocean. Pure water. Pure, clear, beautiful, liquid water available for all of us whenever we want or need it. I turned the faucet back on and leaned over the sink, cupping my hands under it and catching the water, pouring it into my mouth. It refreshed my whole body and I felt cool and bright again. I drank more water and dried my hands and looked at myself again.
I remembered I had to piss and turned around to the toilet.
Look at all that water. What a waste. Why do we pee into so much water? There’s got to be a better way to do that.
I looked at my dick and averted my gaze intentionally. That was a little too weird. Don’t think about penises. Don’t think about sex and putting penises into vaginas. Don’t think about peeing out of penises. The human body is essentially just a tube and don’t think about that. Just finish what you’re doing and don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about not worrying about it.
I peed a little on the seat and pulled off a piece of toilet paper and wiped it and shut the lid and flushed. I took a long, slow, deep breath and wondered if I’d been breathing too quickly and shallowly. A deep breath felt good. My chest felt big and hollow. I felt my heartbeat.
I turned the cold, golden knob and stepped out into the hallway. It was dark and smelled like cinnamon. There was a painting on the wall opposite me of a vineyard. I could hear the party downstairs, laughter, glasses clinking. Brooke Aunt Michelle’s sharp, bitter voice.
Footsteps on the stairs. My neck swung and I saw Brooke’s head pop up over the steps. “Oh hey.”
“Hey! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, uh. Could we maybe…”
“You wanna go?”
“Yeah, you wanna go soon?”
“Yeah, lemme pee and I’ll say my goodbyes and stuff. I’m ready to get out of here anyway. Aunt Michelle and my mom are -so- hammered.”
“Yeah, I. I heard.”
“I love you!” Brooke smiled and leaned in and I leaned in and we kissed briefly. Her fingers stroked my arm and she turned quickly into the bathroom and closed the door. I was alone in the hallway and looked at the vineyard and looked down the stairs.
“The only really important question is: what have the Gods been saying to us that we’ve been completely ignoring? What’s the thing that we’re all going to say in a few days: oh man! Of course! How’d we miss it? Of course, of course.”
“So you’re saying everything is fine, but we just don’t know it yet?” Estragon asked.
“Everything is always fine until you’re dead.”
I sank into a pool on the ground in the corner of the room. Someone held out a joint from the corner of my vision and my hand reached out for it. It was small and soft and warm and a little wet and I took a long, deep drag and held it out in the opposite direction it was handed to me until somehow, magically, it was taken away.
I looked out at the audience. The crowd was dimly lit by the stage lights. I saw Brooke sitting out in the crowd, the empty seat beside her. Her expression was indiscernible to me.
“Let’s get someone from the crowd,” I said, shoving myself, wobbly, to my feet.
“Alright,” Estragon said. He stepped out to the edge of the stage and leaned over, a hand cupped over his eyes to block out the glare of the lights. With his other hand, he pointed a finger to a woman out in the crowd. “Miss? You, there, in the green dress? Would you be willing to come up on stage for a moment?”
The audience applauded and I wandered up to the microphone stand.
“Hey, Michelle,” I said.
Brooke’s Aunt Michelle made her way up onto the stage, a glass of red wine in her hand, and Estragon handed her his microphone.
“We are all born mad,” she said. “Some remain so.”
I shook my head on instinct. “But that is not the question. Why are we here? That is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come.”
I backed out of our driveway and adjusted the car seat. Brooke was the last one to drive the car and my knees were pressed up against the steering wheel. I reached out a hand to adjust the rear-view mirror.
“What’s the name of the play we’re seeing?”
“Uh, Waiting for Godot. It’s a Samuel Beckett thing.”
“The same Samuel Beckett that did those really weird..?”
“Yeah. This one is less weird than those ones,” I laughed. “Or, at least, it’s supposed to be. But hey, the tickets were free, right?”
“Yeah, I’m just excited to go out and see a play with you.”
I smiled ear-to-ear. “Aw, babe, I’m excited, too. It’ll be fun.”
“Yeah. Then… we have to go to my parents’ place. That’ll be less fun.”
I shrugged, flicking the turn signal and glancing down the road. “Eh, whatever. It’ll be fine. Get drunk if you want. I’ll be sober enough to drive home by then.”
“God, no,” she laughed. “I can’t get drunk around my family. When I get drunk I get talkative and when I get talkative… no. Not around them.”
“…yeah, that’s probably a good point. Is your Aunt Michelle gonna’ be there?”
“Yup. And all her kids. And Aunt Carol, and Uncle Tom and his new wife-thing-lady.”
A hand reached from the back seat of the car and handed me a joint. Small, soft, warm, and a little wet. I took it and drew a long, deep hit and passed it to Brooke.
Wide, open vineyards sprawled out before us and our little Honda struggled to climb the hills, the transmission shifting sluggishly as the engine churned. Cool, clean water poured through my fingers and drenched the wheel, dripping onto my jeans. Brooke leaned up onto her elbows on the dashboard. Her eyes reflected in the windshield met mine and she smirked.
“Did you get the tickets?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she smiled, holding up a pair of small, white ticket stubs.
I picked up a small, round cookie, glazed with white icing. Brooke’s Uncle Tom grabbed one, too. “What are these, almond?” he asked.
I turned it over in my hand. “We’re about to find out,” I said, taking a bite. It was sickeningly sweet and dry and my whole attention turned to my mouth, full of crumbs and sugar. My jaw was tight and sticky, my tongue huge and impossibly dry, unmanageably awkward.
“You’re Brooke’s fiancé, right?”
“Yeah. We met last year at the, uh… at that baby-shower thing? Jayme’s baby shower.”
“Oh! Oh, hey, that’s right. That’s good. You’re a good guy. Brooke’s a great girl. She’s lucky to have you.”
“Thanks, Tom,” I said, finally managing to swallow a hard, mashed lump of cookie. I set it down on a Christmas-themed paper plate and the sounds of the room came flooding in. A dozen voices all at once. Tom said something else, his voice completely drowned by the intolerable volume of the room. I could feel the food digesting immediately, my abdomen churning and cramped.
“Hey, sorry, I’ll be right back.” The words fell out of my mouth and into the mess of noise and anxiety that filled the room and I made my way through the bodies and sound and to the steps upstairs. To a quiet bathroom to breathe. Where I could hear my own voice.
I opened the small, plastic bag and poured out the fine, white, crystalline powder onto my desk. I ran my finger through the inside of the bag, the skin of my index finger collecting the dust that clung to the inside of it. I admired my finger for a moment and licked it – the taste was incredibly sour and bitter and I winced and took a swig from the glass of water next to my keyboard.
“Alright, I’m almost ready, let me just touch-up my make-up and we can go, okay?”
“Yeah, sounds good, hon,” I said through the bedroom door.
I pulled my wallet out of my jeans and drew my driver’s license from it. I used the little plastic card to push the white powder into a single, thin line, pushing and pulling at the sides until it was neat, even, and symmetrical. Then a five-dollar bill, rolled in my fingers like a joint, a perfect cylinder. I gripped each end of it to contain the loose corners and hovered it over the powder for a moment, admiring it.
One deep, long inhale. Tickling the sinuses, sharp and warm and cold all at once. You’re rarely conscious of the ability to sense the deep cavities of the skull until you’ve propelled an eighth of a gram of a substance into it. Another quick snort or two. An immediate loosening of the sinuses, wet and runny, a bitterness at the back of the throat. Heart racing immediately. Swallow hard and the drip starts – the tingling, frustrating sensation at the back of the tongue.
I ran my face through my hands and slid onto the floor.
“Nothing to be done,” Estragon said to me.
“I’m beginning to come ‘round to that opinion. All my life I’ve tried to put it from me, saying: be reasonable, you haven’t tried everything. And I resumed the struggle.” I looked up at Estragon, the theatre’s lights casting his shadow down upon me. I rested in the cool darkness of his presence. “So there you are again.”
“Am I?” he questioned.
“I’m glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.”
“Me too.”
“Together again at last,” I smiled, offering up a hand, and he grabbed it and lifted me from the ground. I spun my desk chair and fell back into it. “We’ll have to celebrate this. But how?”
“Not now, not now.”
My nose began to run again and I sniffed hard. The drip poured down the back of my throat. I blinked at my computer screen, a bright and abrasive light.
“Are you almost ready?” I called out to Brooke.
“Yeah, I’m just fixing my eyeliner,” she said.
“Nice to see you again, Tom,” I said, shaking his hand.
“You take care of Brooke, now, you hear?” he smiled.
Brooke’s mother came up beside me and offered her arms up for a hug. I fell into her embrace. “Thanks for stopping over. Come by anytime. Let’s do dinner sometime, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “That’d be great.”
“Bye everyone!” Brooke called out, pulling her Chuck Taylors onto her feet by the door.
“Bye, honey!” her mom replied. “Love you bunches!”
“Love you too, mum.”
I wandered over to her and sat on the bottom step, pulling my shoes on.
“Are you good to drive?” Brooke asked, her voice hushed. “I didn’t drink much, if you wanted me to.”
“I’m good,” I said, fumbling with the laces of my shoes.
“Cool,” she smiled, standing. “Ready when you are.”
I followed her outside, calling out one last goodbye. We got into the car and I backed out of the driveway onto the little street, dimly lit by a lone streetlamp.
“So that’s done and over with,” I said.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Brooke said.
“Oh? Good. I thought Michelle was wearing you pretty thin.”
“Hmm? Oh, no, I. I mean. It wasn’t as bad as those other Beckett plays, that’s for sure.”
I looked over to her and back to the sprawling highway ahead.
“Now we just have to deal with my family,” Brooke sighed. She ran her fingers through her hair and then reached down to fetch a cigarette from her purse. “We don’t have to stay long if you don’t want to. I probably won’t want to stay much longer than you.”
My eyes caught the exit for her parents’ house and I merged into the exiting lane. “Yeah, I mean, we’ll see. We’ll see how we feel when we get there.”
I pulled into our driveway, flicked the headlights off, and turned the key in the ignition, the engine slowing to a halt.
“What a night,” Brooke said, yawning. She unbuckled herself, grabbed her purse, and stepped out of the car. “You coming?”
I looked up at her and back down to the steering wheel, my hands and jeans wet, the theatre lights bright above. “Yeah,” I muttered, unbuckling, opening the car door, pressing the electronic lock on the key.
I followed her up the stairs to our house, inside, dark and cool and quiet. She plopped onto the couch, tugging her Chuck Taylors from her feet. “Isn’t it good to be home?” she smiled. Her shoes tossed onto the floor, she sat up and held out her arms. I fell into her embrace and we kissed.
“Are you still… feeling it?”
“A little,” I admitted.
“In an instant, all will vanish,” she whispered. “And we’ll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness.”
I looked away, to Michelle, microphone in one hand, wineglass in the other. I looked out to the crowd, to the stain on the carpet, to the sprawling vineyards, dimly lit by the bathroom light peeking through the cracked door.
“Tomorrow, when I wake… or think I do… what shall I say of today?”
Brooke reached out and touched my hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
