Artist Insane .com

Josh wakes up slowly, and willing his uncooperative eyes to focus, at last realizes he’s on the couch amidst a sea of Sam Adams bottles and an empty fifth of Jack Daniels he doesn’t even remember opening.  Rubbing his temples in an effort to dull the pounding they can ill contain, he quickly doubts the wisdom of trying to stand, but manages to make his way to the bathroom and splash several handfuls of water onto his burning face.

Catching sight of his reflection in the mirror, and noting the hair from the side he’d slept on plastered against his skull, he reaches for a towel, then ducks to douse his entire head under the faucet – still sufficiently unsteady on his feet to inspire a moment of panic that he might not make it back up for air.  Had anyone ever drowned in their own sink, he wondered idly, finally cutting off the lukewarm flow and rubbing the towel briskly back and forth in a motion not unlike that of a dog shaking itself dry.

Feeling far from recovered but somewhat refreshed, he goes to the dresser to pull out some clean clothes.  Donning them carelessly, he heads back to the living room, where he grabs a hat and his keys before walking out the door.

The night is brisk and he pulls the hat more closely to his head, at the same time flipping up the collar of his shirt as he continues walking along the deserted street.  With no real destination in mind, he hears the same verse of a song he can’t quite place playing over and over in his head like a whispering phantom close enough to threaten danger but always just out beyond the reach of catching to conquer.

“What time is it,” he wonders suddenly, noting the odd phenomenon of lights being switched off in every window he passes, leaving each to eerily stare out into the night like another newly discovered bruise on a losing fighter.  Moving on, he goes by a block of closed shops, hurrying his steps ever so slightly at the entrances to the alleyways between.  Finally, he reaches a stretch of buildings forming an apartment complex and sees a figure seated, smoking, on the concrete steps of one.  About to walk by without glancing in or breaking stride, he is surprised to hear a voice call out his name, and turns in puzzlement to find himself face to face again with Allison.

“You live here,” he asks in confusion, then responds to her look of pained impatience with an embarrassed, “Duh…yeah, I know.  I was here once with Julie…”

Allison merely nods in mid-drag on her cigarette, finally letting out the smoke in a long slow breath, her eyes narrowed pensively.

“So, what are you doing wandering the streets alone in the middle of the night? People get killed that way, you know.”

“Yeah, I know….I don’t know.  I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing.  I just needed some air – or…something.”

Another nod from Allison.  Another long puff of smoke.

“You wanna come upstairs?” she asks at last.  “Have a drink – or…something?”

Still feeling strangely confused and a bit muddled from the evening’s alcohol consumption, Josh hesitates, winning another strange look from Allison.

“Yeah, okay,” he says suddenly, in a tone of firm decision.  “Sure.”

Allison stands back and points to the open door.  “Lead the way.”

Josh enters the building, again tugging automatically on his hat and collar as if to ward off a ghostly chill.  Allison points him to the stairs and he listens to the hollow knell of his footfalls as he climbs the steep flight to the second floor.  At the landing, Allison steps in front of him, pulling a set of keys from her pocket as she approaches the first door on their left.

Unlocking the main knob and then the deadbolt, she at last swings the door open and again motions Josh inside.  Heading for a small bar area on one side of the room, she asks if he wants a drink, and starts pouring a small glass of whiskey for herself.

“Yeah, okay,” he says again, and looks around the apartment as she reaches for a second glass and begins to fill it, too.  Noticing a collection of photos on a nearby wall, he walks over to peruse them, and is quickly surprised to find Julie smiling back at him in a shot of her and Allison in their waitress uniforms, apparently taken during a break during one of their joint shifts at the diner.

Turning away from the photo and the myriad of less happy images it triggers to start clicking off in his brain like an unending clip of bullets, he finds Allison standing behind him, and accepts the glass she offers with a terse nod of thanks.

Far too quickly tossing back its contents, he draws a sharp breath to counter the stinging sensation as the burning liquid makes it way down his throat and chest to the pit of his stomach.  Feeling a sudden return of his earlier nausea, he puts a hand to his forehead and sinks to his haunches to prevent passing out on the worn hardwood floor.

Laying a hand on his back, Allison kneels beside him and leans in close.

“Are you okay,” she asks anxiously. “You want to lie down…?”

His head spinning, her voice seems to echo from a thousand miles away.  Peering into the three heads he sees before him, he suddenly reaches for the middle one and pulls her to his mouth, crushing his lips against hers, which answer equally before she starts to rise and guide him toward the bedroom, unbuttoning her oversized flannel shirt along the way.  Josh follows, tugging at her body, eager for a much needed release of pent up tensions.

They make their way together to the bed, roughly tearing away pieces of clothing until, naked, they rise and fall in a perfect rhythm of animal instinct, wordlessly catapulting toward an oblivion of twisted bliss and an end of pain, losing all sense of each other and themselves in the all consuming vortex of the moment.

Spent at last, Josh rolls away and lies still on his side for several minutes facing the wall as the sound of his labored breathing gradually subsides.  Realizing at last he hears no such sounds from behind, he slowly turns to see if Allison has already fallen asleep, to instead find her lying on her back, both eyes wide open.  Shivering with a sudden chill, his heart starts racing as it becomes evident she’s not breathing, and he quickly presses an ear to her chest in panicked hope.  Hearing nothing, he at last looks in horror toward her face once more – a horror that takes on a new hue when the face blindly staring back at him is no longer Allison’s, but Julie’s.

His own heart pounding out of his chest, Josh woke up slowly and willing his uncooperative eyes to focus, at last realized he was on the couch amidst a sea of Sam Adams bottles and an empty fifth of Jack Daniels he didn’t even remember opening.

If this was what sleep was going to be like from here on out, he thought,  rubbing his temples in an attempt to dull the pounding they could ill contain, he’d take the insomnia – at least until it managed to kill him.