A slight lithium buzz...

The TV is still on. Pictures of the gutted corpse of an Oklahoma federal building with the CNN logo slapped on it. Body count is at 150 and rising. Another disaster in an already impossibly long string of tragedies. Burning oil fields in the gulf, mountains of skulls in Rwanda, Bosnian widows weeping for lost husbands and now this fucker bombing some building for who knows what deluded reason. Timothy fucking McVeigh. Just what we need. 90’s insanity personified.

I hit the mute button and turn on the radio. Eddie Vedder’s voice greets me with his Gen X war cry. Not necessarily a mood lifter, but definitely a vast improvement over the newscaster’s ramble.

I reach for the cigarettes first. A wet cough escapes my lungs as I fumble for the crushed box of camels. Three sparks before I let the flame ignite my cig.

“We’re going to hell in a hand basket…” I mumble to myself through a veil of smoke.

“What’s that, baby?” The corpse beside me reanimates. Make-up smeared eyes peeking through bleach blond, pink dyed hair. Pale breasts clinging to an anorexic ribcage ravaged by reckless chemical experimentation. She was prettier last night.

“Never mind…” I answer.

“Whatever.” she says annoyed. “Half the time I have no fucking clue what you’re saying anyways!” She makes a point of turning onto her other side wrapping the blanket around her with an audible ‘Wooosh’.

I rummage though stacks of papers, looking for my pills. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother taking them. The doctors say they’ll help me, but so far everything’s just gotten worse. Granted, the drug use isn’t really helping, but at least that provides some form of short-term relief while I’m high. These pills don’t even do that.

I find the pills next to a stack of information science and mathematics textbooks… relics of another life at college, memoirs of abandoned ambitions. Three taps on the lid before I can remove it. A gulp of Jack Daniels helps me swallow. I prepare for the lithium buzz.

My stomach makes tortured rumbling noises and I decide that its time to get some breakfast. Maybe I’ll get a greasy cheeseburger and eat it on the beachfront. I contemplate whether to wake sleeping beauty or not, but eventually decide to leave her be. Let sleeping dogs lie. Even demons are scared of her when she has a hangover.

I pull on a dirty flannel shirt, smelling slightly of rancid marijuana mixed with heroin smoke. Something pokes me through the front pocket. A business card. I look at it, trying to jumpstart my memory. Eventually slivers of remembered conversations surface through the fog of my mind. Sharing a joint with Goth girl behind a dark club.

She looked young, barely 16, but she assured me she was 20. Yeah right! But fuck if I cared. Let her do whatever she wanted to do, it’s a free country.

She saw me sparking the lighter three times before lighting the spliff.

“Why do you do that?” She asked.

“Its just something I have to do. Pay it no mind” I answer.

“Do you have, like, somekinda issue?”

“You could say that.” I tried to sound disinterested and annoyed simultaneously, hoping she’d drop the subject. It didn’t work.

“I have this friend who is bipolar. She’s like all depro one day and then so happy it makes me sick the next. Scary shit. Is that what you have?” She asks as she stubs out her cigarette on the sole of her fashionably scuffed Doc Martins.

“I’m not depressed.” I mumbled. “Far from it. I couldn’t give a shit. Nah, I have other… “ I pause to take a drag, “issues.”

“Ever seen a shrink?” she asked.

“Plenty. But all they do is give you drugs. Not that I’m complaining about that.” I gave her a look that said, “This conversation is over!” She seemed to understand.

We make small talk over another two joints. Me leaning against a piss drenched wall, and her sitting on a dumpster, boot clad feet swinging playfully.

She jumped down from her trash filled pedestal.

“Well, I have to run. Thanks for the weed.”

I nodded at her. She started walking away, but then paused as if she remembered something. She turned back towards me, fumbling in her handbag for something.

“Here, take this.” She handed me a card. “It the number of the doctor my friend sees. He’s a bit unconventional, but apparently brilliant.”

“Thanks… I think.” I said.

“Oh, before I forget. He only works at night.” She gave a sly smile and headed back off towards the beating heart of the club.