Vicodin Dreams

A large brown leather suitcase with wheels and a collapsible carrying handle lay on a bed which had been stripped of its sheets and blankets. The bed was greenish blue color and was dingy and stained from many drunken nights spent passed out face down in a puddle of bodily fluids. The suitcase was overflowing with shirts and skirts and garments of every shape, color, and style, the clothing was literally spilling out of the case and onto the worn oak floor. At the foot of the bed stood a dresser, it was missing its back legs and needed to lean against the bed for support, a young woman in her early twenties sat on her knees going through the contents of the bottom drawer.

The girl was small of stature maybe 5'4" weighing not much over 110 pounds, she had a head full of voluminous brown hair, it rolled down her back gracefully meeting a tattoo that was situated just above the fabric of her faded blue jeans. She had smooth mocha colored skin that brought out the emerald jewels that were her eyes, she was biting her rosy red lips as she threw clothing into another suitcase that sat next to her, a stream of black ran down from her eyes to her chin. This was it, her way out she finally could start over, get out of this rut she had been in for the past few years. She could leave all these things behind, the constants that had taken over her life, the drug use, the alcohol, the arguments, the pain. She was packing her bags and with her plane ticket she would leave this personal hell and set off for new horizons, but not until she got her last fix

She stopped abruptly and stood up, turning around to a bookshelf littered with books and magazines, pulls a book off the shelf. Opening the book reveals a compartment carved from the literary work of William Shakespeare, she produced a bottle of assorted pills from the gut of the book. Her shaky hand removes the cap and pours several little white pills into her hand, she looks down at the six small pieces of happiness, the things that will take her away. Away to a world where nothing hurts, nothing matters, a perfect world where you never have to worry. Only she knows as well as anybody that it is only temporary, and that when you come back to reality everything will be as it was. Maybe worse. She wanted to be done with these little monsters, they were tearing her apart, breaking her down. She could throw them away, but she doesn't. She convinces herself that this is the last time, the last high, until she leaves her broken world behind. She stares at these six small white devils for a long while, then picking up a bottle of water that sat on the shelf she tosses the pills into her mouth, takes a gulp of water and swallows hard, nearly choking as they slide down her throat.

Soon she is sitting on the bed, she begins to feel a gnawing at the edges, the first signs that she will soon slip away into a world with no problems, no war, no fighting, arguing, yelling, hurt. She feels the warmth wash over her entire body and falls onto her back as if the waves knocked her off balance. She closes her eyes shut tight from the reality of the world around her, she sees a kaleidoscope of color moving rhythmically to music that simply was not there. She imagined that there was a grand symphony orchestra arranged behind her filling her ears with the most harmonious pieces of music. Slowly she slips deeper into her dream, The orchestra becomes louder and louder, the players play faster and faster, the colors move more quickly. She is becoming very scared, her heart is pounding, her palms are sweating, she is crying out for help. No one ever comes.

Several hours pass her body has grown cold, her lips white, her eyes wide open and empty. Her bags remain packed and she is still on the bed, clutching in one hand an empty orange bottle, in the other a plane ticket. She never made it out the door, onto her plane which would take her away from the pain of her addiction, from the pain of judgment, from the pain of not knowing.