There’s a stage you hit during prolonged amphetamine abuse—an inflection point—where your downward descent becomes a nosedive.
It begins with longer and longer stretches of no sleep. In my case, I wasn’t even technically sleeping at all. My body would simply shut off. I’d pass out for an entire day or night (or both.) No REM, just void. The only things that yanked me back were the pangs of hunger or the onset of withdrawals. But even then, I wasn’t technically conscious.
Without the reprieve of actual rest, my dreams had no outlet. As time wore on, they compacted together tighter and tighter within my psyche. A pounding headache looking for release. Psychological constipation. Dreaming was the necessary bodily function that would free them. But I didn’t know how to do that anymore.
Pressure doesn’t stop. It builds and builds until it finds some form of release. Since my dreams couldn’t escape through sleep, they leaked out into my waking life—integrating themselves into the fiber of reality. Hallways stretched outwards when I walked down them. Voices whispered in my head like I was a radio receiver. In short, the barrier between the real and the unreal was compromised. The levee broke.
Here’s how it happened.
Gold flecks drifted through the air—swirling flashes that popped in and out of the living room. Mike sucked at a curl of smoke. The glittering spots darted away like fish, retreating to quieter corners in the apartment. The veins snaking around my skull throbbed. I rubbed at my eyes with the heel of my palm. Come on.
“Heroin or meth?” Mike studied the floor as he spoke.
“What?” I asked.
His eyes stayed glued to the carpet. “If you could only have one for the rest of your life, which would it be?”
Why would he ask that? The cushion slipped further off the couch as I sunk into it. My body was a diving bell dragging me down. “Do you have the pipe?”
He extended it out, so I could take a hit. The cloud pulled through the glass stem and into my chest. I gripped my heart to feel it glug glug. After seven beats, I exhaled—any longer and the smoke would crystallize, making insulation of my lungs. The surge was enough to lighten my body, but my head still pounded.
“Cigarette?” Our friend, Jerry, appeared in the doorway, casting a long shadow between Mike and myself.
Mike shook his head, but I agreed, lurching myself off the couch. The upheaval made the room spin. Hot, white stars shot through my tunneling vision, and stomach acid bubbled up my gut. But I didn’t flinch. It would pass. I carefully followed Jerry out the door.
The courtyard was a fish tank of an enclosure, surrounded by seven floors of apartment units. Against the night sky, each window glowed with their own unique shade of yellow. I hated coming out here. It was too easy for everyone to look down on me. I pulled the hood of my jacket up. “Can I steal one of those?”
Jerry extended his pack of cigarettes out. The tobacco smelled like leather.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked.
I shrugged. The leathery smell turned to char as I lit the smoke.
“Will you be up at nine?” he continued. “If you are, make sure I’m awake too.”
I pushed my eyebrows together and nodded. Was there something happening tomorrow morning? A profile appeared in a window not too far away from us. The light behind them was too bright to tell if they were watching. I took another drag, and hot smoke spattered the back of my throat. Should I point the figure out to Jerry? He didn’t believe me the last time I told him we were being watched.
“Hey—” I started, but before I could finish, he looked up at the sky. Something caught his eye. But when I followed his gaze, there was nothing to see—just stars and a stray cloud. Not even a plane passed by. “What are you looking at?”
He opened his mouth to yawn, and a jet of gold light shot out.
The cigarette dropped from my hand. A small burst of embers scattered around my shoes before they extinguished themselves. I rubbed my eyes. He continued to stand there—mouth wide to the sky—like a beacon. I leaned against the wall. It kept me from sinking completely to the ground. Up in the sky, more beacons appeared. They cut through the wide expanse of the night. I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers to my temples.
“You dropped your cigarette.”
My vision returned. The beam of light emanating from inside my roommate was gone. The sky, empty again. He looked back at me, expecting a response.
“Oh, umm.” I pushed myself up off the wall. “I was finished,” I managed to say.
He raised an eyebrow and crushed the tip of his own cigarette. He massaged it until the cherry of burning tobacco dropped to the ground. After stomping it out, he tossed the butt in the garbage. “Come on, I need to get some sleep.” As he started for the door, I glanced over the sky and the apartment units one last time. The figure in the window was gone.
Mike hadn’t moved. He was still on the floor, clacking away at his laptop. Schoolwork. What was the point of that? It didn’t seem so important compared to whatever just happened. Did he not know? Something was in store for us. The blood swirled around my aching head, looking for a way out. I needed a come-down.
The heroin slid seamlessly down the foil. Unlike meth, this smoke could be held inside indefinitely. The longer the better. My blood dissolved the chemicals and carried them throughout my system. I didn’t breath out until the overhead light became less piercing, and the stale smell of cigarette smoke faded. My body became a diving suit, keeping me safely submerged in the deep. If I had to choose between the two drugs, this was the winner.
The gold flecks returned from their quiet corners, floating towards us. Mike clacked faster at his keyboard. The swirling flashes swept back and forth through the air like sea foam. With each approach, they came a little closer. My eyes traced their orbital movements, but lack of sleep weighed. I snapped my eyes back open each time they closed. Whenever I did, the glistening specks had spiraled around each other tighter and tighter. Eventually, they formed a greater whole. A singular entity, moving together as one.
The last time I opened my eyes, it dashed straight at me.
To be continued…
No matter what happens, I trust Jerry. He threw out his cigarette butt.
Visceral stuff, Matt. Great work.
A gripping part 1. Looking forward to the next.