Page 20 of Impossible

It would die anyway. I am an enforcer of fate. An act of god.

Left right left right left right left right.

My brain has a thousand tracks and I circle this one instead. Dirt and grass and barbed wire and chain link fence. Alphas and omegas. Omegas and alphas.

Left right left right left right left right.

I use half my mental tracks to watch the other half go insane. Then I try to swap. Taking turns. Playing nice.

Left right left right left right left right.

I try to play movies. White noise. Memories, but only the good ones.

That’s dangerous. My memories aren’t neatly filed. They’re tossed in a drawer. Tangled. Messy. Pull one, you have no idea what’s coming out.

Tonight, it’s Joshua on his knees. Wrists above his head, held tight. A beautiful sight. Tinged with terror.

Me, flopping like a fish. Trying to do everything at once. Trying to obey. Bad bad bad.

I breathe hard. I try to focus on left right left right left right left right.

I thought they were going to kill him.

I think I might be evil.

I saw her on her knees too. I didn’t care. Not an ounce. Not one iota. Just him.

Left right left right left right. One track walking. One track scanning the treeline. Nine hundred ninety eight tracks unoccupied. Static in my brain. Magnetically attracted to the badness that emerges when one tricky track wends its way into the memory drawer.

I twitch. The memories. Several tracks dedicate themselves to trying to make me kill myself. I try to dedicate the rest to not. I’m not the DJ anymore. Not in this mix. Cacophony. My head hurts.

Still breathing though. Spite is the greatest motivator.

Three tracks are empty blackness. They were my favorite tracks. The ones I played loudest. The ones I loved most. The ones that have been silent for six weeks now.

My fingers twitch. I fight the urge to light a cigarette. I wouldn’t even take a drag. I’d just put it out on my skin.

It’s funny. Before, I’d do that too. On purpose. I’d laugh. Show the burn to Grayson or Conrad or Jessalyn or whoever else was around and high enough to find it funny. Make a smiley face of scars on myself. Pointillism. Art.

It isn’t smiley when it isn’t on purpose. When it isn’t my pain to control.

I don’t go home after work. No point. Don’t like being alone and not alone.

No Joshua. No Hollis. No Leon. Bodies, no souls.

I go to the club instead.

Also bodies. No souls. But easier to pretend.

I don’t have a soul either. I don’t think.

Grayson is inside. Leather pants. No shirt. Metal barbells in his eyebrows, ears, nose, nipples. A ring in his lip. A glint in his eye. A pill in his hand. For me. So sweet.

I swallow dry. I sit next to him. We watch the bodies together.

Drinks keep showing up. Different colors every time.

Bodies undulate. I try to decide which shape I want tonight. Soft and round or skinny and sharp or flat and hard. I ignore the smells. They’re all ash.

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