Black Gold

He laid back in his softening chair, mind and eyes wide to the world around him as the black blood gushed through his body. A sigh escaped from his mouth; a slow, ghostly breath, and the chair creaked, sending something falling from his arm to the floor with a light clink. Nothing was quite as simple as he had once expected it to be. Not after all was said and done. His mind remembered, without his consent. It returned to the past, dragging him along for the ride.

He was looking out a window. The canal on the other side was grimy, trashed by the very people who walked along it, gawking at its "beauty". A name was called across the room, his name, and he spun himself around to meet his boss face-to-face. The boss was shouting, "get back to work! Why should I even pay a deadbeat dropout like you?" Before long the boss was gone, and he was left alone once again.

Time sped up, sending him days ahead. The light of a computer screen was glaring into his eyes, burning them with its blue rays. He hit submit on what had taken him all day to complete and sat back in his chair, relieved and anxious all at once, waiting to see how the application would be viewed.

He returned to real life and slowly searched the room. There was a knock coming from the door, slow and steady in nature. He attempted to get up and move to the door, but instead fell flat across the floor, something poking its way uncomfortably into his arm. It removed itself when he stood, and he continued to his original destination: the still banging door. On the other side was his friend, Bernard, holding a bag.

"Jonah, you have to try this," Bernard said, hand extending with the bag. "One dose and you'll see everything. All of the world's nastiest and most beautiful secrets." Bernard's eyes were glazed over, his hair was greasy, his arms were shaking in such vigour that they seemed to be on the verge of falling off of his shoulders.

Jonah accepted the bag and shut the door, back away in silence, all the way to his chair. From a standing position the state of the room was much more obvious. Papers scattered, his desk was on its side, his clothes covered the walls and floor. It was a mess. It didn't matter to him though, and he ignored the clutter as he returned to where he sat and began looking up at the ceiling once again.

He could remember how he got to this place, but why was a sort of thought process that he had no mental ability to fathom in his state. He looked at the bag in his hand and slowly went for the needle that lay on the ground, blood pooled around it. It went easily into the bag and pulled out its viscous black gold. Or was it vicious? It was always hard to tell the difference after experiencing it, not that it mattered. Gold was gold, cursed or not, and so it found its way through his arm and into the rest of his body.

Bernard had been right. He could see everything that the world was hiding from him. Every secret that lurked beyond the dark, and it was terrifying. He cowered under his chair, hoping for them to pass, but they never did. They lingered on and on, waiting for him to come out.

The next morning found him still under the chair, eyes empty and colder than the last layer of hell. His door was finally opened, and the new audience gasped at what they were witnessing. It was a long process to clean the mess, and an even longer one to settle the issue of Jonah, and in the end: it was never worth any of it.