Yesterwary

He locked the door behind himself and tucked his hands deep into his coat pockets. There were holes big enough in both of them that he could easily wiggle his thumbs through the lining. He kept his eyes lowered as his feet sloshed against the puddle-speckled alley, until he rounded a familiar corner near the liquor store.

“You’re not back already…” a woman with a suspiciously bulky jacket said from next to a dumpster. When your drug dealer starts to show concern about your habits, it’s probably time to rethink your lifestyle.

“I don’t want to hear it,” he muttered, pulling a wad of crumbled bills from his pocket.

The woman stared at him for a moment, silently debating whether she cared more about money or the well-being of her customers. It took her less than three seconds to decide.

“The usual?” she asked, holding open one side of her jacket to reveal hundreds of tiny glass bottles containing liquids of various colors and thicknesses, all suspended from little strings that hung down from rusted safety pins.

“I’ll take four,” he said, shoving the money in her general direction.

“Four? …Are you sure? You went through the last two awful quick, and—”

“Four.” His eyes were dark and glossy, and rimmed with the sort of red that suggested a couple of things: One, he hadn’t slept much, if at all, in the last few days; and two, he’d almost definitely been crying within the last couple hours.

The woman detached a string of vials that were filled with a dark purplish-black liquid, so thick it clung like tar to the walls of the container.

“Thanks,” he said dryly, pushing the vials into his pockets so that they fell within the lining—the best hiding place in case he was stopped and searched by a gendarme.

A light drizzle dampened his face and matted his hair as he made his way home. Paul was slumped over behind the lobby desk, snoring loudly, with a smoldering pipe dangling dangerously from his lips. All around his mouth, wrinkles pointed like arrows toward the pipe.

He moved slowly up the stairs, in no real hurry to get to his apartment on the fourth floor. There was no reason to rush. All he had was time. All he would ever have was time. After letting himself in, he dug the glass vials from his pockets, and tossed his jacket onto the floor near the window. He sank down into the bed and neatly lined the four bottles up on his nightstand, uncorking each one carefully so as not to spill a single drop. He’d just spent the last of his savings on those hollow chunks of glass, and he was not about to let a bit of it go to waste. Besides that, he’d gone through so much Nightshade in the last few months, he’d built up such a tolerance that he wasn’t entirely sure four bottles would even do the trick.

He stared at the door, forehead balmy and eyes blank as he quickly downed the contents of each vial. He grimaced into his sleeve, drying the leftover saliva from his chapped lips before letting himself fall backward onto the creaking bed.

Even though he’d already hit the pillow, he felt as if he might never stop falling. His hands and feet were growing tingly, and his head somehow felt heavy and weightless at the same time. His lungs became increasingly more difficult to fill with air, and his eyelids drooped as he gazed up at the water-stained ceiling—looking, but not really seeing. His thoughts floated through his mind like damaged buoys in rough, angry waters. They tried desperately to cling to the surface, but, one by one, they plummeted deep into the abyss with each rolling wave, until her face was the only thing left floating in the tide. Her smiling, loving, sick, medicated face. But she wasn’t smiling at him. She wasn’t loving him. All he had was time that he could never share with her.

He didn’t know for sure if he was moving or if he was just hallucinating, but he thought he might have been pulling himself up from the bed, towards the door. He didn’t bend down for his jacket—he couldn’t feel the cold anymore. All he could feel was the floating.

The street lanterns seemed brighter than they ever had before, and they tumbled all around him like drunken stars. He remembered stars, vaguely. He didn’t miss them all that much. The thought of them reminded him of something dark that he couldn’t fully grasp, like the phantom of a new memory from the old world trying to seep through. Something painful. Something he should regret.

He strode across the cracked path, over the water, past the library. His shoes mushed against soft ground. He thought it looked odd, not quite the color ground ought to be.

“But who am I to judge you?” he slurred, nearly tripping over his own feet as he stared down at the paper-littered grass. He clumsily chuckled at himself for attempting to converse with the ground.

Within moments, he found himself mere inches from the very edge of town. The air smelled so different, here. It smelled thick, and salty, and quiet. Of course, quiet doesn’t typically have a smell, but it might when you are completely strung out on non-conformist-produced Nightshade drops.

“Hello, again,” he whispered, reaching out a callused finger to caress the fog. Perhaps it was the copious amount of drugs that were saturating his system, but he thought the air felt different, as well. It felt warm, and inviting, and friendly. But, most importantly, it felt.

Feeling was the last thing he would experience, in Yesterwary, before the Nightshade finished its job and he disappeared, unconscious, into the fog.