METANOIA

ASHES

Barry realized, with slight astonishment, that he had slept on a pebble. It had almost drilled a hole into his cheekbone. He rolled onto his side to massage the pain in his face, but when he touched his face, the pain in his hand startled him more.

He looked at his mangled paw. He could tell at least two of his fingers, the index and middle, were unsalvageable. He couldn't even feel them. The skin had almost completely peeled off, and the charred bone protruded from his fingertips. His wedding band was embedded permanently in his swollen ring finger, choking it slightly as it throbbed. The ring was stained with his blood and ashes. It was black and brown with hints of gold coming through. His pinkie was not burned as badly, but it definitely pointed the wrong direction. He didn't dare try and move it. The stench from his hand was foul. Various bugs and twigs were stuck on the wound. He started to pick them out, but there was just too much to pick out, and it wasn't long before he abandoned the effort.

He fondled the hole the pebble had drilled on his cheek instinctively, massaging it forcefully with his good hand. Each time he applied pressure, it intensified the ever-present ringing in his ears. He no longer processed the physical pain. He was fascinated by the amount of abuse his body had already endured. While his mind was shattered, his body endured.

He picked up what he thought to be the pebble he had slept on, and it turned out to be a dried turd of some sort, a raccoon maybe. He flicked it into the woods.

He reached into his pocket and fished out his phone. The battery was long dead. He used its reflection to see the damage done to his face. Every shrub and branch he slept on were now carved into his face. He looked like he was wearing some sort of camouflage.

He put it back in his pocket.

His eyes scanned the woods.

At his side, Buddy was trying to balance on the wheel of his unicycle. He fell off when his eyes met Barry's. Lucy was making piss rings on the ground. Even though no drugs were in his system, his hallucinations were still here, reminders of the irreparable damage done to his mind.

He looked back at the phone's blank screen. The other half of his face was sunburned, and even on the dark screen, he could tell his eyes were bloodshot, and a small vessel had burst staining his sclera with blood. He could tell his blood pressure was punishing him for the two-day chemical binge. He felt like one way or another he was not going to make it to the end of this day. He reached into his pocket and swallowed a random pill...then another, and another...enough to take the edge off.

He felt the man he once was no longer lingered in this shell of wretchedness.

He felt Barry had died.

He felt Barry had died the moment he took a hit from the joint Taylor had offered him.

He felt Barry had died the moment he first pulled that trigger.

He died over, and over, and over, a positive feedback loop in his broken mind.

Barry sat up woozily as various sources of pain registered throughout his body. His shorts were stained with blood, and the way it had been stained looked like he had purposefully painted a smiling face upside down on his leg in blood. He tongued his missing incisor. The bruise on his eye had blackened more.

Lucy finished his sixth piss circle as he wound his curly dick back into his, well, whatever it was he was wearing. He approached Barry flamboyantly.

"You are a shit show, Barry. You can't even start a fucking fire, even with me, the source of hell and brimstone, at your side. Un-fucking-believable."

Barry muttered into the emptiness. "Shut the fuck up."

Lucy egged him on. "How about I visit that princess of yours, Melinda, once this parade is over and show her how to light a real fire, huh?"

Barry stood up and heaved a large rock in his general direction.

His lungs inflated as an inhuman roar thundered into the distance.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

He swung at the emptiness that was Lucy's face. He passed right through. Lucy just laughed at him condescendingly.

"You want to see fire? I'll show you fire," growled Barry.

He slugged his way to the uncapped spare gas can. He started pouring it on the ground as he walked in a massive circle around the woods, never breaking eye contact with Lucy. Buddy was now manic riding in circles around Barry on his motorized unicycle. Together, they were a planet and its satellite orbiting around Lucy. Buddy was screaming frantically, almost orgasmically as Barry set the foundations of his greatest work of art yet. He ignored Buddy entirely as the circle closed. He then grabbed whatever flammable he could find and made a sizable pile beneath one of the trees enclosed in the circle. He poured the rest of the gas on the pile and lit it with his lighter.

The flames started out discreetly and looked as though they would die out before they could begin to do any damage as the ashes rose. With the slight breeze, however, it wasn't long before they engulfed the nearby tree and spread, following the gas trail Barry had left behind, progressively gaining strength.

Barry looked at his own hellfire in awe. It was growing wild and uncontrolled. Soon it was too hot for him to stand so close.