I jump out of bed to the sound of my father's wake-up call. I was just playing a very important game in one of my stupid, meaningless dreams. My head spins downward in a still drug induced motion. Lora had been with me last night, which had helped me sleep. I run downstairs as Downers always tend to sustain my energy. My lunch is packed and I belch up some of my Gatorade I had already drank. I can feel a reassuring burn in my throat that tells me "Today is another day." Father asks about when I'm getting my tonsils removed and I tell him, and he says "It's good you know. Just get it over with." Yeah, that's what I'm doing; getting the **** over with and done, I get it." I come into work and I see orange foamy **** on the ground that smells like *****. What a **** job I got myself into. And the kid that works with me is a ******* four eyed *****. He stares blankly at me, never hearing what I say. "Looks like antiseptic." He responds, "What?" I walk away and get to work and think about the Fiorinal I am going eat. I go to the bathroom and take two with my Gatorade and then wash back another two. I take Franky out to the field, and he's chortling and having a real fit. I tell him to shut the **** up. I also let him know how much of a **** he is. My head feels loose and my body feels light. But it's still a mundane kind of high which is ****** to cope with such a mundane, life-******* job. So I take three more. Franky starts spinning in circles like a two ton child waiting in line for pizza day at school. Franky's nihilistic values and unruly behaviour has been a total ******* hassle to me. I've heard he's bucked and killed three people so far. So I feed him some of my Fiorinal; about 300 milligrams. I kick the ****** in his paddock and he runs off to harass the others. My head is throbbing nicely and my center is igniting with a sunlight feeling. I see Franky out there gradually falling under the spell. He then keels over; lopsided like a fat bag of flour breathing heavily with a dry cough. I give him a peanut butter sandwich as a method to resuscitate. He cranes his neck from his idle position and eats the sandwich. It turns out there was another 300 milligrams concealed within the sandwich. I walk away as I eat four more pills. I'm good but not good enough. The kid that I’m working with is still sweeping the hallway. The mundane procedure erases his reality into some meaningless nightmare. He then looks up to me and asks "What's wrong with Franky?" I tell him to shut the **** up and get back to work; "And work better while you're at it." I knew about the pills in the sandwich cause I put them in there for Franky. What I didn't know was that Franky was allergic to peanut. I see him out there, spread eagle with his belly touching the ground. I go “****!” and eat another dozen-something pills in response to the distress. The kid asks what I’m eating and I barely hear him and then I think about burning down his stupid church so there is no excuse for him to miss every other Sunday’s work when I got better **** to do. Then I think about the pain in my stomach and the blood I taste from somewhere. And as I’m running to help Franky, I think that he will be fine; he’s lying on his stomach. Usually when they are dead they are lying on their backs. When I come up close to him, his large red eyes see only death. I feel something raw and smooshy in my underpants. I must have soiled myself unknowingly. He’s still breathing, that’s good. My body and mind do not feel intact and everywhere I try to open up my closed eyes, the peephole becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. I smell like ****. Was it the pills? Was it the store-bought stuffed peppers I ate last night while playing solitaire? I think of its oily texture and merciless burn which only causes more stomachache and diarrhea. I’m now lying next to Franky. His struggle to live is sad and pathetic. I close my eyes thinking: respiratory depression. I start to cry. I hear the ambulance. I open up and I see Franky’s eyes frozen directly at me; as if he knew I killed him. He is stiff, heartless and somewhat waxy. He looks like he should be on display in the Kremlin. What separates between us now is the coagulate sandwich that smells like stomach juices. I don’t know if it’s mine or Franky’s. “Are you alright?” someone asks. I can’t respond; there is no energy. I’m sure it’s the paramedic. Now Franky’s owner races through and steps over me and onto the coagulate sandwich which goes Sshjerp! Tears stream down her puffy ***** face and starts consoling to the dead animal in a very sick, twisted kinda way. She goes back and forth from talking to him and then yelling at me. “You did this! It’s all your fault! You can go rot!” I’m half conscious and I have an oxygen mask strapped over my mouth and I’m humming one of my favourite songs, thinking about how delightful it is to be alive whilst the ***** still points her gross, fat fingers in my face. “Say goodbye to your twenty thousand dollars, sweetheart.” The twenty thousand ******* dollars you had spent every ounce of energy to maintain and keep alive.
A short story.
