Drabble 02 - 06.10.2004 "Tripping"

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 07:51:18 GMT

Ethan inspired me so much at once to write this that I was dizzy and my heart was pounding for me to typetypetype as fast as possible. And for once there weren't as many typos as normal. Odd no?

Ethan remembered one time he'd managed to scrounge enough money for mushrooms. He'd heard about them, he'd seen the stories, heard the lies and the truth. He knew that some people didn't know what the hell they were talking about and that other people knew too well and refused too say. Ethan was not stupid, he knew how to separate the truths and the fakes, just like he knew how to break up weed and roll a joint and clean resin from a pipe. Easy tasks that he lost himself in.

So he had bought these mushrooms after holding onto the money for weeks and then he'd timed it on the monthly weekend his parents disappeared to see his father's parents.

He had heard how orange juice, Vitamin C makes it better, makes it work smoother. He had orange juice; he always had orange juice after that. Simple as that it was just always there.

So he finally got them, caps and stems and the smell had been atrocious. His nose had scrunched up and he had another hit off his dank pipe (Buck, he'd named it). Calming his nerves, because oh god finally something new, something that he could lose himself in for the next however many hours. It was like a shining light in his gray room. Ethan could hardly remember a time when he'd been so excited he thought his stomach would jump with his heart and out of his body.

With the orange juice in a container near him and the mushrooms laid out in a small pile in front of him he hesitated, wondered how he would eat them. If the smell was bad, the taste would be worse. He finally shrugged and took a sip of the juice and stuck three of the smaller caps in his mouth. Eyes closed as a wave of disgust rolled up his spine. And he chew, chew, chewed until it was out of his mouth and took a long gulp of the orange juice. Muttering about the repulsive taste bitterly and slowly working his way through the rest of the mushrooms.

Half the container of orange juice gone that easily and he scrunched his nose again. Vile.

It took longer than he had anticipated for them to poison his body. And when it hit he'd been in the bathroom taking a piss. For the rest of the night he stayed there. Watching him, but not him sway in the mirror. Pupils dilated to the point where he couldn't concentrate on anything, especially not himself.

After that all he could really remember were vague impressions of hallucinations. The smell of the mushrooms in his nose. The yawning, the waves of peaking. Walls that dripped water that looked like paint and felt like honey, honey when he pressed it to his fingers and slid it over his cheek. It had been important to do so much, like sit and watch the wood in the medicine cabinet shift and make shapes. Seeing an Indian chief that slowly died the longer he looked.

At some point he'd rolled up, laughing at the feel of his too long body doing such a move, to plunge his hands into a sink full of water. Cold and slick and it felt so good like things that didn't makes sense and people who ate 'til their guts burst. Good in that "I'm breathing in water through my hands, I never knew it was possible" kind of way. Life in forms of tracing red lines under the water until he realized he didn't actually like it, wanted to dry his hands and step away from the bathroom. Away from the shower curtain he could remember slipping off its rings like wax, before reforming and starting again.

When he'd escaped the cold tile floor, and too many colors, and too much water he was laughing. On the floor in the hallways and laughing so hard he couldn't breathe. It was so funny. The bathroom ATE him.

Even now it makes Ethan chuckle. When he remembers, when the urge to do more, do it again, come on you know you want to hit again and again. The memories of such freedom to talk to walls that talked back, and to cry when he saw the deer painting on the hall wall. Such beauty in something he took granted of.

He'd finally stopped laughing at some point and realized he was muttering something to the deer painting, tears streaking back into his hair, cold and slimy like old oil. It had taken him forever to get back on his feet and lean into the painting, pressing his head against the fabric like canvas. Alone in a moment of purity tainted by poison.

That was it though, because the deer in the painting weren't free and he'd wanted so badly to tear it down and cut it to pieces and free something he never even thought about on a regular basis. Something he'd never ignore again. So if someone saw him reverently brushing his fingertips against the frame, or caught him tracing the paint on the deer’s he didn't explain himself.

After all he'd never be able to explain such purity in words that were inhibited by unconscious fears of what people would think.

If his father had heard these thoughts he'd have another bruise on his arm for being a faggot.

Ethan rolled over on his bed and closed his eyes. Trying to fish out more memories, but it was like thinking of his father blocked them and he bit his pillow, upset at the loss.

In the end all he could fix well in his mind was feeling sick to his stomach and falling into his bed, legs twitching out, bare heels pressing down into the bed as he held a sheet close to his body. Eyes wide for so many hours as he lay there until sleep slowly swept over him in a sickening wave of his mind and body.

Took days for the poison to drain fully from his body. Leaving the taste of mushrooms on the back of his tongue, making everything taste bad and twisting his stomach.

Ethan pressed his head into the pillow now and thought of blue eyes and shame and wished he had the purity of mind to not think.

With a sigh he rolled out of bed and went into the hallways to press his knuckles and forehead against the painting. Finding comfort in something so pure, something not gray and killing it self. And he wished he could cry like he did that one night tripping.

~fin

Drabble 01 - 05.29.2004 "AAA: Anyone Anything Anymore"

Sat, 29 May 2004 12:37:47 GMT

It all makes Ethan...think.
Sometime after meeting Ben.

When he met Ben he realized that everything he had ever complained to Chris before was pointless, petty, and after that he stopped complaining. Started to try and understand true suffering the lost hungry look he’d seen a few kid’s at school have. That ‘please, looklooklook, touch me, make me feel needed, touchtouchtouch’ look that haunts their eyes in clingy shadows.

Ethan has probably never had this look unless he’s copied it from someone else.

When he sees his father nowadays he doesn’t sneer, he doesn’t fight back… he doesn’t even bother to reply at all. And if he has a large handed bruise on one of his arms from an old quarterback hand squeezing too hard he just wears a long sleeved shirt and he doesn’t even show Chris.

He’s never had a bruise on his face. That would be abuse, not a strict hand.

When his mother takes too many of her pain killers and lays in bed a heap of what was once a beautiful prom queen he doesn't say anything. He doesn't let her hug him with her droopy, weeping arms, or press her make up smeared face into his shoulder. He stands on the edge of the bed and pats her head softly. Thinking that someday she'll die and he's not sure if that makes him sad.

Except then he wouldn't be able to sneak into her purse and take her money. When he has those thoughts he gets too stoned and passes out to forget.

This happens often, he never tells Chris why.

Nowadays he's quieter, thinking about a life that he has no right to want to be a part of.

And he never tells anyone anything anymore.

Too Clean

Drabble 02 - 06.10.2004 "Tripping"

Drabble 01 - 05.29.2004 "AAA: Anyone Anything Anymore"