Marble Mouth

12:26 pm

the music i’m listening to is bad but i don’t have the strength to put on something else.  a feline rests against my back.  my head feels full of fevers and vice=grips, clenching down, and in comes mr. sinister with his parade of hammers to start beating my brain into submission.
i still need to change my clothes

12:29 pm

i’m checking my cell over and over in case the man behind the mirrors contacted me today.  he hasn’t been around in over a month but i hold out hope.  i’m drumming my fingers against my desk when i notice something: drippy yellow running down my t-shirt.  i touch the substance and my fingers come away covered in slime.  frowning, i double over, examining my t-shirt.  somehow, it’s an egg.  a perfectly yellow egg yolk is crushed against, running down, my body.

12:36 pm

vincent has been called for backup.  vincent is either my worst friend or my best enemy, and it’s often hard to tell the difference between those two things.  when he speeds up in front of my house i can tell, before he even leaves his car, that he’s wired on crystal.  i wait in my basement while i hear my front door slam shut and cries of my name upstairs.

“yeah.”  i shout back.  “i’m down here.”

vincent flies down the stairs and then there he is, gleaming in front of me, grinning wide, his rotted and cracked teeth shining in the sickly fluorescent lighting of my green-walled basement.

“so buddy.” vincent says to me, although it sounds like he’s shouting.  “i hear you’re having a little problem.”

“yeah it’s this—”

i gesture to my shirt, exasperated, hoping that, even though the skin on vincent’s hands is practically worn down to the bone, he’ll be able to give me some answers anyway.

“let me just see here,” vincent says, and he does, resting one hand on my shoulder in the process.  he studies the shirt, raises his eyebrows up, down, up, down.  then he pulls away.

vincent says “so, uh, what is the problem?”

“the problem is i got all this fucking egg goo all over my shirt for some reason!” i practically snarl.

“whoa, whoa, calm down there, buddy,” vincent is saying, making “back off” motions with his hands as he does so.  “i just think you’re having one of your episodes again.  huh?  are you having one of your episodes again?”

when i don’t respond vincent reaches out and rubs my head with his knuckles and it hurts.

“come on.  trust vincent.  believe in vincent.  give yourself to vincent.”

vincent extends his hand and i take it feebly.  he lets go even though i want him to hold on longer and then he wipes tools, power tools, hammers, screwdrivers, he wipes them all off my desk in one swoop of his arm.  he takes a small baggie of powder out of his pocket and, doing a little dance, pours its contents out on his desk.

vincent turns to me and smiles that broken smile.

“buddy, this is all you need to fix you right up i’m telling you.”

i walk over to the meth and cut myself a bump.

“yeah, a little meth.  why not…”

12:56 pm

everything is zoom zoom fast but feeling good and fast colors and i’m aware of vincent behind me, pulling down my pants, and i try to shake him off but by now i know there’s no use resisting when he does this, so i let him just as i let the crank tank me to another plateau.