The Dream

CHAPTER 12

My nostrils burned as the coke shot up and into my sinus cavities. The front of my head felt like a torch had been set off behind my eyes. The room shifted colors and started spinning. Jennifer was flipping in the chair, clawing at invisible bubbles. My legs felt surprisingly weak all of a sudden. I tumbled to the chair with a crash. The flames on the candles warped and elongated, breaking through the ceiling as I stared at them. Like long tentacles of hot flame they licked towards the ceiling. My head hung to the side as I marveled at the intensity of color and sound. My ears throbbed; I could hear the chambers of my heart opening and closing in slow motion as the warm blood rushed in with fresh oxygen, and then back out to replenish the farthest extremities of the body. 

I raised my hands before me, twisting them until the protruding veins flickered like translucent rivulets beneath my paling skin. Sweat leaked from microscopic openings in the top layer of the endoderm. As I gazed intently at the porous fissures oozing their lubrication, heat resonated from them. My body felt on fire. 

"What do you think?" Jennifer said, her head hanging backwards off the seat, her fingers dancing on an imaginary string towards the ceiling. She was still in her panties and bra. Her toes clung to the sides of the chair as she spun in circles.

"I feel...different," I said.

I didn't know how I felt honestly. I had never done cocaine or any other drug for that matter. Well, that's a lie. I smoked marijuana with my buddies, but that didn't really count as a drug. It was almost like smoking a cigarette, just without the nicotine and all the poison. It actually worked as a great anxiety inhibitor for tests. Many of us on the football would smoke a blunt right before one of our Chemistry tests and we'd walk out confident and stress free. I finished a Physics test once in 11 minutes. Mr. Stark rolled his eyes as I showered him with my biggest grin, trying to hide the fact that I was high as a kite. 

He had only said, "Would you like to review your work?"

"Nope! It's all good," I had said, and strolled back to my desk, high-fiving my buddies along the way. As it turned out, I got a 99 on it. Mr. Stark ended up creating a grade curve because the next highest score was a 74. Most of the class was well below that. Some might say I'm a genius, or blame it on the fact that my dad worked in biochemistry lab, but I knew the truth. It was the hash that saved the day.

"I feel like I'm floating," I added.

Jennifer was now rolling on the floor, tip-toeing her fingers along the carpet's rings. 

"Did you know there were thousands of loops in this carpet?" she said.

"What?"

"There are so many of them. They're like tiny worms all connected to each other. It's kind of cute. Come here, little fella. Where do you think you're going?"

"Uh huh," I groaned, leaving Jennifer to her own fantasy.

The way the carpet was sewn together was the least of my concerns. Right now I was doing everything I could to keep from tumbling upside down and vomiting all over her father's Indian Laurel. He'd kill us if he knew we were using his desk as a petri dish for drugs.

"Where are you going? she said.

She was sitting up, her hair propped to the side. She looked like a barbie doll with her perfect porcelain skin and complexion. 

"I need to get some air," I said. "I'm not feeling well."

"Are you going to throw up?" she said.

Just the sound of the word made my stomach gurgle.

"I just need to splash my face with some water. Where's the nearest bathroom?"

"It's just down the hall and on the left."

I twisted the doorknob. The grinding springs inside the mechanism rattled my eardrums. I could hear the whole house breathing. 

"Hurry back," she said. She had her legs cupped up to her chest, eyeing me hungrily. 

I just blinked my eyes. Nodding my head might have resulted with it falling off my shoulders, and opening my mouth to speak would have proven fatal. I inched my way down the dark corridor of the hallway towards the spare bathroom. I held my right hand along the wall for balance. I tried closing my eyes but it only made the spinning worse. Every step felt like an eternity. I could feel the fissures and tendons of my muscles flexing and pulling along my bones with every agonizing step. My brain was trying to squeeze its way through my eyelids.

Sniffing the white powder was definitely a bad call.

I finally made it to the bathroom, and leapt across the chasm, retrieving my hand from my lock on reality, and swept through the hallway as the world swooped me up. I barreled my way through the door and shoved my face into the toilet. Each heave came with a wave of gut wrenching claws as if every time my abdomen contracted to spew forth more of the tonight's fun activities, my ribcage would squeeze tighter as if it were blades imbedding into my insides. I gripped the sides of the toilet with both hands, not to keep from floating off with the vertigo, but for sheer support of the volley of pain emitting from my stomach. 

One final heave proved invalid and left my mouth hanging empty. My lips quivered and the last remnants of vomit and spit hung towards the mouth of the toilet. My eyes swooshed back and forth with the whirlwind as the toilet's release valve sucked down the contents of my misery. Still on my knees, I shuffled to the sink and hung my head below the cool water. My shirt was sucked to my skin with sweat. It was as if my body had just come out of a steam room but at twice the temperature. I cupped water in my hands and cleared out my lips and tongue, then I took swallowed a few gulps to rinse down the last particles of acid that had been gurgled to the surface. My stomach throbbed but welcomed the neutral liquid. A few more mouthfuls returned it to a solemn ache. I managed to raise my eyes to the mirror. Red orbs masked behind a sheet of pure white stared back at me. Somewhere between the booze and the crack I had lost my soul and turned into a ghost.

I held my wrists under the flowing water allowing the coolness to sooth my burning skin. The water slid down the nape of my neck as I smoothed my hair back and patted my palms against the fleshy tissue. 

"God help me," I groaned, splashing another handful of water into my face.

I didn't know if God would hear my prayers or even care considering I had gotten myself in this predicament all on my own. But it didn't keep me from pleading to the Almighty for some grace and mercy to make the dizziness subside, or the burning behind my skull to die, or the ache in every portion of my body to evaporate. I laid my head against the white porcelain sink with my hands in the water, and closed my eyes. The cold porcelain cooled the burning and eased the fever down.

Thirty minutes later, maybe longer, I heaved myself off of the bathroom floor and shut the water valve off. I wiped my face off with the hand towel and used it to dry the rest of my body. The sweating had stopped and the spinning was bearable now. My head still ached, but at least I could see again. I cracked the door open and a rush of cold air swept over me. It felt good against my skin. Like a mummy awakening for the first time from his deep slumber, I emerged into a world of noise and laughter.

That is, until I heard the gunshots.