The Poisoned Mind

I woke up again and the house was empty. I was on the couch. The house was always empty, abandoned, I only came there to get high. No it was my friend’s house, there were always people and music and girls there, and we all got high together. Except it was empty, no furniture except the couch by the big windows in the front, and all the lights on. They had left me there. No it was the time I woke up with all my clothes on in the bath tub filled to my chin with cold water. They had left me there.

I got onto my feet and they were under me, somehow. I had the right things in my pockets, I hoped I had the right things, the front door was wide open again. My feet and legs worked together. It was cold and dark and I could hear lots of people outside. I could see out of my eyes, except my brain was poisoned behind them. I knew it had sickness in it, but that was okay. If I knew it was poisoned I could think around it and get to somewhere, somewhere else.

There were people everywhere in the cold under the streetlights. They were careening all over the sidewalk, they were laughing and falling into each other. They were falling down in the middle of the street. They were laughing and moaning and they were all dead and they hadn’t noticed me yet, none of them knew me by name. None of them recognized me.

I shoved my hands into my jacket and looked at the sidewalk, I couldn’t let them see my eyes. If I had my sunglasses I could put them on, but that would attract attention. If they could see my eyes, they’d know me. Someone lurched and almost knocked me down. I stared at his feet, he was missing one shoe, I could hear him breathing loudly as he passed behind me. A man was on top of a woman on the hood of a car, her legs were around him, he was devouring her. She was laughing at him as he tore off a piece of her neck. There were hundreds of them shambling around the intersection, the orange from the streetlight, ah god jesus that orange light, that light on their faces.

When I saw the children, I started running, everyone else looked up, I didn’t care. I think they came after me but I didn’t look back.

I felt better in the alley, there were none of them in sight. I hid, stuffed myself between two trashcans. I tried to slow my breathing down, but someone in the trashcan heard me and started to come out. He pushed open the top and I could see his eyes, there was nothing behind them. He came over the top and crawled down on top of me, his mouth was open. He put his mouth, his mouth was on me, my face. He wanted my eyes. I found a brick and smashed his head again and again.

After that I forgot, I went back to the house, I don’t know if I ran or crawled. I had something on me, I thought it was dirt. I was wrong, it was blood. I locked the door and sat on the couch. I couldn’t stop shaking. I got up and went to the kitchen, there were more of them out the back window, but they couldn’t see in. They couldn’t see me. I found my phone on the table, there was a message from my friend: “Hey man, where you at? Let’s throw down!” I wrote back to him, “Please, come find me.”

I woke up in the back of my friends car, the lights were passing by overhead, they were passing quickly. My head was on the lap of a girl and she smiled at me and ran her fingers through my hair. “It’s going to be okay now,” she said.