Angst in a Vile, Part 1

It went in pretty deep this time. He begins squirming around the small, compact bathroom of the shitty apartment downtown, the one he shared with her. This wasn't the first nor the last time he'd do this and he knew it. He begins to slide around the slick and steralized lynoleum floor, the prickly thing still hanging from the crevess of his elbow. His eyes glass over and the eyelids droop in a warped ecstasy, visions of large mountain ranges in green and stereo dancing in his subconscious. His body begins now rocking in a distorted sort of meditation, never going one exact way or another. He slowly sinks down the wall that has held him propped up the whole time, never even knowing that he is. He then breaks from reality and the fun now begins.

The wind howls like a damned wolf in the wilderness. The thin and piercing wind going straight through him as he awakes from reality. He looks around to realize he is elevated to a rather large plane. He gazes this and that way to make out where he is and he walks over to the edge to gander at the base. He jumps in horror to see a large sea of crimson swishing and swashing against the mountain, hissing in sound.

"Jesus God, what in the fuck is this?"

He tries to convince himself it is only a hallucination and a damned rad one at that. He closes his eyes and tries his hardest to come back to reality, knowing full well that there's no hope for that. This is junk after all and once you are riding on a junk trip, you don't get off, it gets off you.

He opens his eyes and the wind picks up even more. He begins to cover up and notices his attire for the first time. He looks down to see himself decked out in fur, resembling a racoon pelt of sort, with it's black and brown pigment. He then hears footsteps behind him. He quickly turns around to see a man approaching. His defenses do not go up however because the man looks excited to see him.

"Claudio, you have awoken. I was sure you'd parished in this cruel wind."

Claudio looks at the man puzzled and the man pats him on the shoulder and chuckles a bit.

"Tough tide down there. The blood isn't drying atall, it seems to be getting even more-

The man's voice begins to get deeper and slower, along with his motions. Claudio tries to follow as close as possible but can not. Finally, the man freezes, his arm outstretched in a manner of explanation. Then, he explodes. Claudio's face gets covered in bloody body matter and then he begins hearing the sound of weeping.

She rushes over to Claudio and holds his head and weeps. He swore he'd quit. He said he had to for them and that it was ridiculous that he was doing it. "Should have known" she thought to herself as she begins to slap his face, trying to get him to reality again. Finally, his eyes slant open just a little and foam begins to come up from his mouth. She cries even harder, adjusting her glasses at random intervals.

"Claudio, you motherfucker! You fucking mother fucker! You lied to me!"

She shakes him violently and he just lies there, foaming at the mouth. There's no need to shake him, she knows his far gone in some sick land where dragons exist, along with the Jersey Devil and the Muffin Man. She knows because she's been there. She's done what he did and she quit, but she quit hard. Many a time, she would find herself relapsed, in fetal position and naked in an unfamiliar place and aching for it. She got on because of him anyways and she'd tried to leave him and he didn't object, she did. She'd leave a few days and then she'd get withdrawals from him, just like the junk and she'd come back and they'd shoot up or fuck. Now, however, she is clean and she's been that way a year now and this shit is getting repeatative.

She gets up and frantically searches the sink cabinet for something to wipe the festering wound on his arm. She finds baby wipes and begins to nurse the shoot up point. Why does she do this? Why does she let him rule her life, knowing that there's better out there for her? Someone is out there, alone, waiting for her and she's sitting on a fucking bathroom floor, nursing some dipshit druggie because why? Infatuation? It's a little past that I'd say. Lust? Moreso than that, seeing as he can't get it up due to the junk. Love? Ah more like it but was it even that? She's only 16, can she honestly have an opinion of what love is. Maybe she does because what better of an example of love is nursing a druggie on a cold lynoleum floor?

She gets the blood wiped up and she sits there with him in her arms, a flinch here and there keeping her from zoning out. After a good time of this, he spits up. She wipes it immediately and he comes to but slowly. His eyes squint through the junk induced haze at her, so imperfect but perfect in the same right. He looks up at her, her faulty eyes corrected by sleak black bifocals and her hair a multicolored clusterfuck. He smiles at the sight of her, so silly yet so cute. Her face is stern and swollen from the sobs and she rises up. He rolls onto his side and looks her way, eyes still drooped and googly.

"Claudio, you can't keep doing this shit."

The last few words are choked out by tears. Her nose squenched, putting her glasses back on target for her natural crossed eyes. Her face contorts and she begins sobbing again, idly pulling a baby wipe from her pocket and tearing it into quadrants.

"I don't know why I do this....you said you had stopped."

He sits up, rubbing the haze from his face and leaning back against the wall. He looks into her eyes and stares for a spell, trying to collect the words.

"Yeah, well, I didn't did I?"

She sighs and nods. He rolls his eyes away from her and stares at the porcelain of the tub.

"It just...hurts me...you know?" she says.
"'Guess" he says disconnected, looking at anything but her.
"How can you be so indifferent about this?"

Yeah why is that Claudio? You've lost several jobs because of it, you've lost your family and you lost your dreams because of a vile full of junk. You'd think that someone would get the point by then but it's not that easy. Once you get a shot, you become dependent. Junk becomes a vitamin, a necessity for the human body and that is why. He breaths in deep, feeling a feint tingling in his lungs.

"Huck, I'm a drug addict. I've never been anything and never will be. I've accepted it, babe. I'm the garbage that is picked up curbside, I'm filth."

"No, you're amazing..."
"No."
"There's more to you than the junk."
"Oh?"

He gets to his knees and scoots her way, taking her into his arms. Huck sighs deeply and tries to squirm away, tears still filling her eyes. He gets up slowly and roughly, raising her chin up, looking her in the eyes. She can't help but notice his horrid hue, a sick grey, yellow around his eyes.

"Huck, we are interchangeable, everyone on earth. My demise brings a life for another, it's simple. I love you and don't forget it."

He then presses his lips on hers and a stray tear falls between their lips, the taste of sodium mixing with their love.


                                                                        The Bleeding

Claudio tries to remember when things went wrong. However, everytime he tries it's hard to pinpoint one instance since his whole life's been a matter of circumstance and tragedy. He never knew his father, aside from the pack of Camel cigarettes he left at the shack of a house they lived in when he was young. His mother put them in a box and never looked at them again.