Addict, III: A Short Story

The last bell rings and I am free, walking out of the school jailhouse for the weekend. You could ask me what the hell I learned in all these hours and I will tell you straight: not a goddamn thing.

School is the ultimate wasteland for the youth. We sit in crowded classrooms in too small desks, listening to a monotonous instructor tell us about the reality around us. The approach is that school is a job, a task to complete, a hurdle to jump over, ready to prepackage each and every student into a worker's mold. Just squeeze in enough to call it "well-rounded" so we can crank out another forty or so years for some half-assed company as a drone.

My question: why the hell should anybody bother to memorize these tests anyway when all you have to do is kick a ball really far and colleges will throw themselves at you, despite the many teachers and coaches that fudged grades to get you there?

But the best part are the history books, so streamlined that every single battle was a walk in the park rather than the bloody gore-fests they really were. We are expected to believe that all these wars were necessary rather than the selfish whims of monarchical rulers and have pride in the fact that all of human history is littered with this egotistical destruction. Then we get the joy of celebrating the heritages of all the people that have been screwed over in the name of progress during their designated months so that we can be "inclusive."

It's a sham, all of it. Right down to the "abstinence is the right choice" lines we are fed day in and day out. Parents bug the hell out because their little precious angels might be exposed to a proper sex education. Abstain, we are told, while our society is steeped in sex.

But if you even so much as mention it, adults run for the hills as if you asked them the most secret question in the entire universe. "Where did you hear about sex?" they ask, as if the Cosmopolitan magazine cover hasn't already told you while you're standing in line with your mom at the supermarket.

School is nothing, I mean nothing, but a fucking waste of time.

So now I'm wading through the crowds waiting for their buses and their rides, seeing the popular kids flipping their hair and flashing winning smiles, hearing the jeers and leers that follow the losers wherever they go, smelling the stench of adolescent sweat and adult perfume, touching flashy clothing as I stalk past, tasting the bitter knowledge of being alone in this swarm of pressing bodies where no one calls me a friend.

My shoes trudge through heavy puddles as I make my way towards Simone's car, hating being here as small raindrops kiss my face with the dew of sadness. Everywhere, everywhere is gray, washing away all the color from the world, bleeding it dry differentiating hues until all is the same. Gray puddles reflecting gray sky leaking gray rain upon gray cement underneath gray vehicles blurred by gray drops clinging to my lashes.

Somewhere inside I hear a sigh that no amount of Clonzipam or Ativan or weed will ever fully erase. I know too much. I think too much. I see too much. I hear too much. I wish sometimes that I was like the rest of these shiny, happy people all around me, oblivious to what is so wrong with what we've been told.

The sky lets loose with a torrential downpour, soaking me instantly as I take the last few steps towards Simone's car in the student parking lot. I sit on the hood, watching students running for cover. If only I could float away with the rainwater down the street into the gutter where I belong, maybe things would be different.

The tenseness of the attack starts in my spine first. Maybe it was my depressed state that triggered it. I never fucking know. But I'm already sweating when the tingling spreads to my feet and hands. A jerk of the heart and I know the restlessness is here, tripping through my veins like a demon. I'm so busy resisting the urge to squirm that I don't even notice Simone hollering at me to get in. The engine beneath my ass has been roaring for a good minute before I become aware of it.

I manage to snap myself out of it long enough to dive inside, fasten my seat-belt and endure the ride home. Minutes blur. I try to keep it together, keep it together, just keep it together until I can get into the house. I tell Simone good bye and am out of the car before she can respond, dashing across the front lawn and colliding with the front door.

Across the threshold. Up the stairs. Into my room with the door shut. The box awaiting, taking it out, rifling through, snatching up my pants-leg to jab the pentacle into my calf. The small release is not enough. Tears slide down my cheeks one second before the sob bursts from my chest.

Heaving, crying, screaming, sobbing into my bedroom pillow, fists pounding into linen sheets, knuckles cracking with strain, grabbing the headboard as rage flows through and threatens to over come me. Opening my mouth to scream into the pillow, face red, not breathing, roaring roaring tides of rage, falling into the abyss of sorrows.

I'm seeing things in my head from my nightmares: rotting corpses telling me that I will soon join them, eerie shadows that move without sound. I can almost feel the press of hands around my throat and hear the guttural voice chanting in a language I don't understand.

It's too much for me, these feelings, this intensity. My hand jerks out to delve into the box again. I can't take this anymore. Fuck it, I can't. I just can't...

I slice the knife across my arm in one wicked slash.

As blood spills, the tide finally disperses. I am myself again, flushed and sweating with skipping heart and trembling body, weak and spent. I lie there on the bed with a crimson stain spreading on my shirt from the arm slung across my mid-section, calming down, down, down, down. The pill Ebony gave me is inside my jeans pocket. I open my mouth and swallow salvation.

Put it away, Winter, I tell myself. Forget it. Just fucking forget it.

Rising, I clean myself up and bandage the nasty cut. The shirt is placed in a plastic bag to be thrown out later. I don't want to hear any questions about it.

In a few hours, there will be a party. I will feel again. People, music, and feeling, feeling, feeling. Something so much more profound than the emptiness of my bedroom and house and heart.