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For one-thousand, two hundred and fifty-six seconds, I kept my eyes on the line
where the last step struck the ground. My chin rested uncomfortably
against my clavicle. Do not believe that I was totally inanimate as I sat
and counted the seconds. I shifted now and again and even bit my lip a few
times. My lips were peeling, dry and cracked, and tasted like salt.
I also listened. The sounds they made were like the sounds of
raindrops falling flatly on wood during a drizzle. In fact it must have
been raining at that moment, because I could smell wet oak. Those sparse
sounds were of lips touching, shifting bodies, and quick breaths.
Somewhere around the nine hundred and seventy-ninth second the sounds
stopped. Two hundred and seventy seconds later I stood up awkwardly.
My joints muttered as they were forced to function and my face and throat
acquired a buzzing warmth.
My sight traveled over to them; they were
both asleep and without clothing, tangled and breathing like the mess around
them. And even though, deep in my mind, I felt that I could not leave, the
thought, ‘Why am I here!’ burst into my mind. My pathways
pinched. My orifices tightened. I went stumbling out the door.
I was on the sidewalk, which ran along a quiet street lined by quietly
colored houses, but my brain was crying and whining at me, glowing and burning,
making my face hot. I permitted my lungs to soak up oxygen, and then
started walking in the direction of the building where I lived. I passed
through the neighborhood in half an hour and came back into the commercial
district where there were people and huge steel, glass buildings and lines of
bright, honking cars.
As I walked down the street I looked at my
hands, at the skin on my hands, at the millions of dead cells that protected the
rest of me from the outside world. It was my thick, cold armor, always
falling away, always being replaced by freshly deceased skin. I could
almost see the thousands of microscopic insects crawling all over my body,
eating me. I dropped my hands to my sides and looked ahead at bobbing
coats, hats and hair.
Even though I had showered not long ago this
place made me feel as if I were drenched in my own human grease.
I
walked up to and stopped at a railing, which looked down over a few coffee
shops, a newspaper stand, and the entrance to the subway. It was an
uncomfortable distance from my person to the ground. I could feel my
center of gravity hovering precariously above the top of the railing.
Someone broke from the crowd of people, which was rushing up and down the
street, and shoved me. I toppled over the railing and fell listlessly onto
the gray cement. My head cracked open on contact. Done,
finally. “What sort of idiot,” mumbled a passerby. I sighed and
kept walking, annoyed at myself.
My face grew hotter as I ascended
the stairs to my floor, to my apartment, where I unlocked and opened the door
and closed it behind me. I walked away from the door and dripped down onto
a chair at my table and spilled my arms and head across the cold surface.
I slid one arm off the table and reached into my pocket. I pulled out a
small, black revolver and brought it to my lips. I cocked the gun.
The barrel clacked against my teeth. It tasted oily and metallic. I
pulled the trigger in and the bullet flew out. The bullet burst out of the
barrel, spinning, and drilled fast through my brain and skull, searing
everything it touched. The shock from the bullet’s contact with my gray
matter cleared outwards all of the unpleasant heat and sickening buzzing.
I pushed my sweaty palms down onto the table and got out of the chair.
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