Husk

Chapter 2 - Repeat

Chapter 2

So here I am... Hospital bed. 3 a.m. living the same nightmare, over and over. Fucking doctors. Pieces of shit. I've been in here TWO fucking days, high on morphine, Oxycontin, and whatever else the pricks feel like injecting into my new body. The nurse tells me I'm doing great. How is this great?

When I finally fall asleep at 3:27 a.m. the nightmare starts again...

"Have a good time at the Pit Mr?" The taxi driver says in his broken accent. I don't like how he calls me mister, it makes me uncomfortable. "Great time yeah," I respond. "Yes I have met many a good people there" he says as he lights his cigarette. I ignore him.

"Can you put that out," I ask. I probably sounded like an asshole, the cab already reeked of smoke and piss and the glass window covered almost all of area in front of me and behind the two front seats. The only opening was a small one barely large enough for a hand to pass through were you could hand him money or tips. I liked to think the glass was bulletproof. I thought about how it was probably made to keep punk kids from shooting the driver in the head and causing a wreck. Nobody likes it when people make a mess of things. The shit people do when they know they know they will just wake up again in three days. It's one thing to kill yourself or another person it's another to destroy public transportation - that costs the city. I remember once thinking the same thing when I was young just to see what it would be like. Juveniles never get punished severely for crimes like this. Its only when one person doesn't wake up or doesn't have an implant that the death penalty is given.

I laughed imagining the taxi driver lighting his cigarette after dropping me off. Cussing. Cursing me for asking him to put it out and the fact that I'm too broke right now to tip him. I imagined him dropping it swerving and ramming into another car.

"Sorry Mr." he says and throws the cigarette out the window. I'm looking down at Azra's number wondering if she made it home from the bar yet, wondering when I should call her. Should I wait one day? two days? Maybe I should call her when I get home. I know I had just met her but I feel like I have known her my whole life. I tell myself I'll call her when I get home.

We approach the bridge. 6-7 minutes and I'm home. I saw Azra's cab head in the same direction as mine. I bet she lives close to me. Maybe ten minutes, I can't believe I had never seen her before. I guess in a city of millions, a world of billions, I could believe that but damn. "Tonight was something special" I say under my tongue. I see the taxi driver look in his mirror, "You Mr... Look like you have fallen in love." He smiles at me and begins to talk about his wife and how they had met at the Pit, introduced to each other by Denton himself. I feel bad for thinking bad thoughts about him now. If I had the money I would leave him a nice tip.

Another minute passes. We are in the center of the bridge when both of us watch in horror as the road in front of us falls apart. The concrete splits in the ground. The beams and wires begin to fall in towards the center. It's like a black hole has opened up and we are being sucked in. We are probably going about 75 mph. The car slides and jumps as it hits a crack in the road. We start to fall towards the epicenter sideways. The sound of the tires popping sounds like someone whistling during a fireworks show. Our screams match pitch with the sound of metal thrashing metal. Our screams echo around us shouting back at us. They tell us we're going to die.

We're falling.

A piece of metal about an inch thick pierces the car and goes through the taxi drivers skull. For a second I think about those punk kids shooting people in their cars for kicks.. I think about how they would love this. The same piece of metal now pierces my shoulder passing through my bone. I feel it pick me off my seat as the car twists and falls. Imagine your on a roller coaster. No. Imagine that you are the roller coaster and the entire damn park just started to implode with you at the center.

I am like a feather in the wind.

Falling,

Falling through an endless void. Falling through the air. 

We hit the water.

I hear screaming but I know that the taxi driver is dead. For a second I think the screaming is my own. I look over to my left and see an elderly woman. She is in the front seat of her car. She is staring at me. Her hand is hitting the window over and over. Her brittle bones break the harder she hits. Her eyes are forever etched into my mind. Dark brown eyes surrounded by wrinkles. White hair. Pale skin covered in blood. Her clothing ripped apart by the metal hurricane we were being swallowed by. The water is filling her car faster then my own. She is drowning.

I can't believe I am still alive. The car starts to fill with water as it slowly begins to sink. I watch the woman drowning outside my window thinking how the same fate is approaching me. The water is at my waist when I realize I am on fire. My nerves are dead. I can't feel anything.  Azra's number washes away before the car is completely underwater. We are sinking front first into the darkness. I take my last deep breath. The water begins to fill my lungs. Now I'm drowning. I struggle to hold my breath but my chest tightens. The rushing water hits my burns and I feel a shooting pain descend throughout my entire body. I open my mouth and scream but the soundwaves are muted by the water. This is what drowning feels like.

I wake up in a sweat. The machines hiss. I look at my hand. I see Azra's number carefully placed on my hand, same ink, same handwriting. They want everyone to wake up and feel whole. They take pride in making sure that the last thing you touched, tasted, smelled, smoked, that it's all there. They make sure that any scars you have appear in the exact same places. They even make sure that the ink on my hand is the same color, probably from the same pen Azra had at the bar courtesy of Mr. Denton. It's like the whole thing never happened. The doctors and police treat me like I was in a simple fender bender.

I just have a few pieces of paperwork to fill out. The nurse walks in. I only need to stay a little while longer. She smiles at me before walking to my bedside and pushing a small button. My night terror had woken some of the other tenants. The small button releases some more painkiller.