finally ended a scene....

I fall back a step, half-drunk sober stagger, vision shattering. Not just between the alley, my eyes strobe, spots dancing. My head feels full of broken glass. That was something, somewhere, somewhen, some ... but I can feel it slipping away like grease down a drain, the memory a residue of – of –.

I rub my face, sweat slicking off onto my hand, eyes squeezed tight as I stumble down the road. It feels like a toothache behind my eyes. Whatever Sam thinks I am, that I'm becoming, I wasn't ready for ... I don't know what it was. Memories being destroyed, things charged with that task. Who, what? Nothing comes. What was memory is now a movie screen, the distance a necessity borne of desperation, fading from my mind before I can grab it.

There was an alleyway, long, narrow. People in it, things taking them apart. Taking what made them people apart, and .... nothing else comes. I saw, or was shown, more. But now, nothing. I tried to kill myself yesterday, but my brain is protecting me from this. Laugh or cry? What isn't both? I shudder a little, arms around myself, and move. One step. Another. Walking is easy, even if you hurt, even if you can barely see, when it means you're getting away, running. It mustn't have been hard to end up on land, long and long ago: be chased hard enough, run far enough, and you would. Fear wins. Only cowards survive.

Somehow I make it back to Ed's apartment, hurting all over. Even my fingernails ache. Everything looks unreal even as I walk into the solidness of it. My eyes hurt, even squeezed shut, but I'm not bleeding from them. It's not a horror movie; somehow that makes my life worse. I strip clothing soaked with sweat, fall into the shower. The room is thick with steam, wallpaper bubbling by the time I exit. Eyes feel gritty, as if I have sand in them. I take stock: the rest of me hurts, but I've been worse.

The wallpaper smooths under my fingers, a metaphor for the world. Gaudy designs pasted over bare walls, bubbling up, smoothed down. A laugh escapes me, strangled. "Nothing is metaphor now," I say, and my voice matches the one whispering inside my head, perfect. It shuts up. I leave. Ed isn't home. It's good, better: I don't want to be seen like this. Not vulnerable, but broken. Something broke inside me. I sleep. Fix it. Sleep fixes things.

I hold the mantra even as part of me is so scared of the darkness that will follow.