In the Realm of King Wolf

Chapter One. Drowning out reality

The wall clock ticks the seconds away while I lie on the bare cement floor in my undies. I may appear to be asleep, on the floor in front of the small television, except I am not. Minutes pass before my muscles register visible movement. My eyelids flutter open with effort and my eyes try to focus on the movie being shown. The screen seems to form a face that my brain could barely register. The audio is also garbled and to me sounds like incoherent jumble of syllables.

I move my head sideway as I look at my limp hand on the floor. I feel my lips form a smile. It's funny that despite not being able to make out the picture on the screen, I can distinctly see the misty waft of smoke that comes from my cigarette. I follow the ascending mist, lost in the way absorbs the colours my old television emits.

I will my hand to my mouth and drag on a cigarette stick of a brand ironically called Hope. I then let my hand fall to the floor again, this time the cigarette fell from between my fingers. It will soon add to the many burn marks on my floor. I ignore it and eye the empty bottle of tequila and the small shot glass containing the last of my precious potion. I didn't even bother to buy lime or even a chaser today. I move my arm closer to the glass but after moving an inch, I decide it was too much effort.

Sighing, I let my body lie flat on my back and stare on the water-stained ceiling. 

"Reality is over-rated," she tell the stain that at that moment looks like a rabbit with that fuzzy little head and soft body. I silently tell myself that reality is nothing more than layers upon layers (upon layers) of illusions made to trick. "It doesnít matter," I say in a voice loud enough for the rabbit stain to hear, "whether it is to trick others or oneself. It is nothing more than a trick."

"Why?," I feel the rabbit soundlessly ask.

"Why, you ask Barbar?" I have just decided that Barbar is a good name for that rabbit on the ceiling. I do not find it odd that it is now gaily hopping every now and then. 

"The answer is simple," I continue. "It is because one can."

"Won't the truth be known?" Barbar asks now with a small distinct voice.

From the time Barbar asks me and the time I respond, the fallen stick of cigarette has burned to its filter and died on its own.

"Truth, and this is the truth," I tell Barbar, "is nothing more than an idea that does not truthfully exist."

With twitching whiskers, Barbar give me a puzzled look.

"What is true always depends on the one who is jamming his or her version of it down your throat."

I decide it's time to finish the bottle. "Another person's truth doesn't go down as well as good tequila," I say as I raise the glass to Barbar. I feel the drink wash down my esophagus and with it comes the alcohol-induced warmth. 

"Everybody lies, Barbar. Heck, maybe even I am only lying to myself. No, no, that's not it. I'm not lying, I'm just drunk."

Through heavy eyelids, I quietly watch Barbar. The animated rabbit stain wiggles his tail, twitches his nose, and hops over one plywood to the next, crossing the brownish line between them.