I could stand the sounds of his words and voice only from the bourbon. Extraordinary events passed between his yeses and oakie-doakies that made me sicker than any of the pill mixes I’d eaten before the phone call. I answered him in bourbon stunned amazement. I was ill at the thought of him paying for the house but I needed the house. Why couldn’t he just say no like everyone else, the sick sound of thick judgment in his voice, swill worse than the death pill batch I had brewing in my head for consumption later on. But he said he wanted to pay because the house should not be lost to foreclosure and if it wasn’t for that, I was less than an inch away from him never talking to me again.

I got the picture and stared at it in the dark bathroom. I was skinny, sallow and my hair in a dirty upset state that depicted a life taken down by a massive shark attack. I crossed my legs and sat on the toilet for a while looking at the picture. It was me laying there naked and as empty as the bourbon bottle next to me lying on its side too. The days had nothing in store for me except the time under this roof. The house a small two memory one with blue walls a good kitchen and a sturdy backyard. I’ve lived here through my heroin use, whoring myself out for cocaine and now my obsession with pills. A clash of addictions found only in school girls messing with the ideas of cheerleading or studying for the spelling bee. More like a clash of illusions to think I ever owned this square footage and that the papers saying numbers, due dates and ownership were ever really mine.

I have no reason for being sad, depressed or lost, I just am. I have no reason for losing my job at the coffee shop except for my own stupid behaviors. I have no reason for this indulgence, abuse of my free will. I know I have a body that I carry around with me everywhere like a backpack filled with looks into others lives, scents of sex carried around my insanity, the humiliation in my crawling around the floor like a reptile. I know I have no reason to indulge my free will in self destruction when I could get up and crash on the couch like polite folk, but I fold here on the spot on the bathroom floor under the toilet. I rage at the floor, beat the mattress strewn on the floor, beat the world for losing me in the mish-mash of humans gathered like a batch of bananas at the supermarket begging to be somebody, to count.

The End – Tomorrow!