East of the Elevator

Shapes and colours are flooding together, spiralling and circling and circling and surrounding me and all of a sudden I can’t breathe, I try to move, it’s choking me, I try to lash out, it pins me down, I can’t move I can’t move I can’t move I can’t breathe oh god I think I’m gonna die oh it hurts it hurts it’s stabbing me from the inside out oh god it hurts so bad it wasn’t supposed to feel like this they said it would be good it would be fun it would be awesome I’d be so high no no not like this I’m screaming now am I screaming I can’t scream I don’t know I can’t hear anything it’s all muffled I don’t know what’s going on it’s so hot I can’t breathe I’m chilled I taste blood is that blood what is blood I don’t know anything anymore spinning spinning suffocating choking oh god can’t move can’t breathe it hurts it hurts why did I what the hell is wrong with me I knew I shouldn’t have oh why me ow ow I can’t take this anymore I didn’t think it would be like this okay okay I’m sorry just make it stop just stop it just MAKE IT STOP

* * *

“WHOO-EEEE!”
I can hear guys whooping and hollering; shrieks of laughter and the ritual chant of ‘Chug chug chug chug!’ I roll my eyes; trading smirks with Alexa and Charlene. On cue we all burst out laughing. Who are we to be rolling our eyes? We’re as bad as the rest of them.

Charlene pulls the little vial out of her purse. Forget the drugs man; that purse is a bad trip all in itself. It’s this vile, faded leopard-print handbag that’s the ordinary tan and black on one half, but on the other half the tan is replaced by a horrific turquoise colour. The turquoise alone is enough to make anyone nauseous (just in case the leopard-print pattern itself didn’t already do the honours), but the combination is beyond grotesque.

Whatever. Charlene has notoriously bad taste in clothes; we established this fact years ago. Back in grade eight we thought she was just trying to look punk, what with mixing stripes with polka dots with plaid and all kinds of sick junk. But now we know better. Yup, Charlene’s just plain fucked in the head. It doesn’t matter though, because tonight Charlene’s got the goods. Judging from the way her brain seems to operate (picture Swiss cheese undergoing electroconvulsive therapy), she’s had the goods every night, now and for the past six years at least – we’ve just been too busy slamming her and ignoring her to notice.

Okay, okay, so maybe it wasn’t the most mature way of dealing with our “differences”. But it’s hard to be mature in a shitty little town that still reeks of the defecation your great-grandfather accidentally decorated the schoolroom floor with on his first day of grade one, way back when some drunken settlers first decided that it would be a good idea to live on a pancake.

To be continued...