Short Story, Not Particularly Uplifting

His mother was in the next room, snoring away on the sofa. Every other moment a particularly potent gurgle would escape, wafting into his bedroom. He thought it sounded like a baboon lost in the throes of a powerful dream. He focused on the large bottle of beer at his feet. He had only just opened it, his third of the evening, and he was trying to decide if he should have left it in the fridge.

Another loud snarl from beyond the door to his room caused him to jump. He swore aloud with the usual, unimaginative words as he scrambled to pick up the bottle, trying to salvage as much of the remaining 20 or so ounces. He licked his fingers before grabbing an old towel. The beer wasn't tasty so much as it was chemically reactive. These days he needed every drop to make a proper escape.

He sopped up the mess as best he could, wiped his hands, and took another swig before sitting back on the edge of his bed. An unbelievably growl-like snore erupted next door, and he scowled at his door and its inability to block the sound, muffle the irritations of his mother's sleep, or protect the sanctity of his brooding. He turned his tv on in an effort to create his own soundtrack. Settling quickly on the mundane dregs of cable television, he dropped the remote and assumed the most comfortable position fo the contemplation of self-pity.

Knees wide apart, elbows propped firmly atop them, forehead cupped in both palms. . . he occasionally ran a single hand through his hair for good measure. He was absolutely serious about the bleakness of his situation. His phone sat a few feet away, near his pillow. He did not look at it.

He really had no choice in the matter. No choice other than which beer to swallow whole. What else was there? Perfectly on cue his phone lit up and buzzed. He lowered his head a bit more, as if attempting to smell his own neck. He swatted halfheartedly at a mystery fly buzzing between his head and his phone. The buzzing ended.

What choice did he have? Yes, it was true that he had agreed to call earlier. But, well, clearly that was impossible. He took a long draught off his bottle and paused. When he closed his eyes the feeling in his head was muted, a barely floating feeling. No, he would need more than beer tonight.

Come to think of it, he thought as he reached clumsily under his bed, he couldn't recall the last time beer had been enough. He pulled out a few empty bottles which he quickly discarded directly into a pile of old clothes. As his fingers grasped on of the bottles he sought, a couple of words whispered their way through his mind.

No, he unscrewed the cap of his rum, I don't have a drinking problem. He chuckled a bit. The only drinking problem I have is too many empty bottles and not enough full ones. He threw his head back and tossed down another dose of burning. It tasted slightly like old medicine.

Exactly what he needed: a little medicine for the soul. It must surely have been located near his pancreas, judging by his choice in cures. He chased with a sip of beer, which left a rather nasty taste in his mouth, almost like old vomit. The rum was quick, though, and he wouldn't be bothered by the taste in his mouth for long.

Why on earth did she want him to call? He knew they would talk about nothing. Some fanciful nothing that would degenerate into nerdy allusions, later into sexual overtones and lust in her voice. Why wouldn't he call her?

He simply couldn't. He was so tired of lying- of pretending to be good. Sooner or later she would see. He would falter, she would wake-up, but either way if he kept on, she would realize that he was. . .

Well, he knew that she was better. That she deserved better. And that she didn't want him, at least not the real him. He'd been careful to tuck that bit away. He felt full of agency, full of portent and power. He felt proud of his choice in the matter. It didn't occur to him that his powerful choice had been to do nothing, so he wasn't bothered by any silly notions of irony.

It did occur to him, however, that he hadn't heard a snore in a very long time. A dope-ish grin crept over his face, looking quite out of place amidst the general aura of brooding. He picked up his jacket and cigarettes and with the mistaken grace of a drunk he opened his door and attempted to creep outside. His mother didn't stir.

Thank God she's finally out, he thought as he filtered the air through his cigarette. He held his first drag in his lungs for a moment, felt the pressure as the smoke pushed against his chest and the nicotine smuggled itself into his blood stream. When he finally let go of the breath it was with a sense of relief- a cool release. Outside the cold air numbed his thoughts to a slow state- speed he could readily ignore. He looked at a tree instead, its branches, its few remaining leaves- lost, forlorn, but oddly right where they should be.

He smudged his cigarette out in the dirt, dropped the butt into an old coffee canister, and went back inside. His head was putting up a good fight against the swim of intoxication, and he smiled as he caught himself on the railing after missing the last step or two.

He looked at his mother, lying on the couch, mouth open. Still no more snores. He paused- no sounds at all. He picked up a blanket and went over to her, quietly as a drunken dog in a nursery. He piled the blanket atop his mother, pleased that she didn't stir after his gentle endeavor. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. She felt cold and he was glad to have been thoughtful enough to grab a blanket. With the further concern of a man on the verge of passing out, he stumbled back to his room and wedged his door shut.

The tv was still on. He lay down and rested his head. He reached behind his head to pull out his phone, which had been interrupting the smoothness of his pillow. His brow furrowed as he examined the phone with more directness than he had dared earlier. He briefly considered calling her, coming up with some excuse to explain the hour. . . ?

But he didn't want her to think him a drunk. His thoughts were becoming extremely muddled, and he opened the contacts directory on his phone. Seeking further intoxication, he scrolled to the N section, past 'Nadia', straight to an entry simply labeled 'No'. He pressed the glowing green button and listened as the phone rang in his ear.

The old voice answered, annoyance painted thickly. Even in his state, though, he could hear the underlying eagerness. She was terrible at hiding. He mumbled something indistinct, which she took for an invitation.

"I haven't heard from you in two months, and now you want me to come over?"

He mumbled something even less distinct.

"Well, give me 20 minutes."

And before he could reply she had hung up, which was just as well, as the only reply he was capable of anymore was a gentle snore.

"Judy"

Walking quiet streets was a pastime for Judy in the purest sense of the word- it was a way to pass the time. The ache in her abdomen refused to give way, crowding her senses and refusing her favorite form of personal abandonment. She had tried to go walking three times already, but she couldn’t catch her breath enough to conquer her stairs, let alone the hill she lived on. She settled for a puff of guilt-ridden cancer and sat on the stoop while its acrid taste seeped into her cheeks and fingertips.

She wondered if the ache in her belly was something more than bad food. The recurring fear of a tiny parasite leeching the walls of her uterus drained her mind of its store of calm and left every signal her body sent tinged with dread. She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t be.

Why hadn’t she insisted that he be safe? What was it about her that allowed those sudden bursts of passivity in the worst possible moments? She was a pillar of strength and intention except in those terribly hopeless moments when an older man pressed himself against her or an unknown stallion pierced into her. She couldn’t understand herself and she had all but given up hope of forgiving herself for such weaknesses. They were to be born, and that was all.

Judy climbed into her bed and swaddled herself with blankets. She was always cold, her extremities tingling even in the full weight of the sunshine. She pulled the neck of her sweater up over her head to trap in every escaping molecule. She stopped moving to survey the results and found that she was trapped. The warmth would come soon, but the knocking in her head and chest would not leave. She wished for a sign, a desire, a passion, even hatred. Her apathy was paralyzing.

If her blood returned in a week would her numbness disappear? She listlessly hoped it were so and curled her hands into a twisted ball, cradled under her chin. How she longed to sob into the night, but there was nothing for which to sob. There was nothing wrong with her life even if there was nothing right. She wished for sleep.

The elusiveness of such dreamless sleep was ironic for a woman who often battled competing waves of depression and narcolepsy. At any point she could sleep for a dozen hours without stirring, that is, any point but when she desperately needed to escape. She could not banish the thousand empty thoughts running loops in her head. For a woman without conflict she carried too many fears.

And anger, though she was reluctant to admit it, was creating its own course through her body. She couldn’t believe that she had allowed her ex to seduce her. She had been weak, she had been clouded, she had been lonely, and though she knew she could have done things no differently, she was still disappointed with herself. She should have known the future, her gut pushed. She should have seen the falseness and the trap. She could never forgive her own humanity.

How she expected herself to resist That Woman’s smile and shoulders is a mystery, but Judy was still crucifying herself for it, and laughing at the reality of the conversation the day after when That Woman had spoken of being cautious and building friendships with respect. Somehow she seemed to miss the glaring inconsistency in her own philosophy, having pounced on her confused friend and former lover only the night before. Judy felt stupid for having believed any of the words that came out of That Woman’s mouth. After all, she had prior offenses and a history of laxity when it came to being genuine with her truth.

But this was past, as all her transgressions were. Lying in bed and considering all the ways that life had gone awry was Judy’s least favorite pastime and the one that recurred most painfully and insidiously. It was frustrating, but it was her only reality. What was life without these occasional forays into the pitiful and pathetic? She couldn’t be happy, not really. Perhaps she didn’t believe that such happiness or comfort was acceptable. Perhaps she was happiest in her soul when she was huddled alone and crying. That was a sobering thought. These journeys into her sad, illusionary world were becoming less frequent and, Judy thought with a hint of a smile, maybe she was growing past the sadness. Maybe she was beginning to live.

That life made these moments all the harder to bear. When she had fallen asleep every night cradled in her own arms, it had been comforting to know that her self-pity would always be there. Now its presence brought a stale, mildewy stench with it and memories of that life, many lives ago, when she had believed that she truly was alone. It was jarring to find herself lifted from the joy of life to this self-induced trauma. She hoped it would pass soon. If only she had the energy to walk right now she might walk until she flew away. Instead she tucked her head in and pressed shut her eyes, praying for sleep and a little bit of clarity.

"Possibilities"

He looked across the street and stared at an empty tree. In the dim light of the street lamps, the old oak looked like a dead hand, trying to claw its way out of the earth. He sucked in a long stream of acrid smoke and held it in his lungs, waiting for the nicotine to infiltrate his blood stream, waiting for the smoothness of a little tobacco high to even out his night. In his room there were two forties and a bottle of vodka waiting. A tall stack of porn and a short stack of novels waited to vie for his attention. The competition would not be intense.

He exhaled a bitter cloud and felt a little bit of heartburn irritate his stomach. He thought about not drinking tonight, taking a couple of Tums and sneaking into bed early. He thought about beginning to write the story that had been percolating in his mind for the last few weeks, or calling up the guys to come over for a couple rounds of poker. He thought about not spending the night alone in the basement of his parents’ house. He thought about calling her.

He knew that the possibilities for the evening were numerous, and that it didn’t matter how limitless they might be. He had already made his decision, and the events of the evening had been set in motion. The forces of gravity were less exacting than the forces at work within his body, so he took one last drag on his cigarette before flicking it into the street. He watched with a wistful resignation as a few red embers sparked off the pavement before dying. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, slumped his lanky shoulders, and went back inside.

His parents were in the living room as he walked through. They were arguing about something on the television and didn’t seem to see him passing. He no longer noticed their ignorance. Living with them was like living with apathetic strangers, and if living there had cost him a penny, he would have moved out long ago. As it was, he had adapted to the survivable mediocrity of his cheap surroundings.

He walked downstairs into the semi-finished basement he had been living in since he finished high school. He rounded a corner, passed the bathroom, and walked into his humble abyss.

It was a small room; the bed and bookshelf took up most of the floor space. A small TV was huddled on top of a nightstand in one corner, with a stack of case-less DVDs resting near the screen. Dirty clothing obscured the corners of everything and empty beer cans lurked underneath old papers.

He sat on the edge of his bed and opened his first can of beer. It was cheap and mostly tasteless, which was why he preferred it. He didn’t need to be classy in his alcohol choices tonight; no one was watching what he drank, and he certainly wasn’t drinking for the taste. He downed half the beer in a few quick swigs and set it on the floor.

He flipped through the stack of pornography next to the DVD player and was annoyed by the choices. They seemed stale. He’d seen them all too many times, and hadn’t been bothered to go to the store for anything new earlier in the day. He regretted that decision now and defeatedly stuck an unexciting selection into the open tray. He picked his beer back up and finished it while the title menu came onscreen.

He pressed play, opened the second beer, and picked up the bottle of vodka. He swallowed a few mouthfuls of the fiery liquid before quickly chasing with a drink of beer. A small voice in his mind told him to slow down, the whole evening was before him. There was plenty of time to drink half the bottle.

He couldn’t slow down. He took a few more shots of vodka, and half his second beer was gone. His head was beginning to reel as he pressed “mute” on the remote and yawned as two women began to undress each other onscreen. He lay back on the bed and picked up his blinking cell phone. She had sent him a text message telling him to call her. He considered the possibility for a moment, but decided to wait a few minutes before engaging her in conversation.

A cough began to build up in his chest and he sat up suddenly, the hacking shaking his whole frame. He couldn’t catch his breath, and tears were beginning to cloud his eyesight. After a few minutes of an exploding sensation in his chest, the coughing subsided. He went to wipe the tears from his eyes, but stopped when he noticed there was blood on his hands. He had coughed up blood.

What was that disease? he thought. The Poe one. The one that killed all Edgar Allen Poe’s women? Consumption? What was that? He squinted his eyes for a moment and tried to concentrate. Concentrate. TB. . . Tuberculosis?
He worried for a moment that he might be terminally ill. Coughing up a handful of blood was not a normal occurrence. He wondered if Tuberculosis was still going around and if it was a painful way to die. The worry morphed into a warm sense of relief as he concretely thought about dying in six months. He smiled.

He probably wasn’t dying. It more than likely had to do with his recent increase in smoking. He had moved from two or three cigarettes to two packs a day in the space of a week.

The realization that he wasn’t going to tragically die in six months was a grave disappointment to the evening. He found himself longing for the simplicity of a divinely mandated exit visa and felt cheated by the tease of blood in his lungs. He cleared his eyes with the back of his hand and wiped off the blood and saliva on a nearby t-shirt.

There was a blinking light next to his leg, and he stared for a moment before it registered that his phone was ringing. He answered her call and began to listen to the latest edition of bad-boyfriend weekly. She was crying into the phone and saying that she wished her boyfriend would be as sweet as he was.

He swallowed and mentioned that he would never hit her child. She said he was so sweet and went back to talking about the latest in her long string of loser boyfriends. For some reason it didn’t matter that he was blindingly drunk; he still couldn’t tell her to fuck off. He couldn’t avoid her calls, he couldn’t tell her how passionately he felt, and he couldn’t tell her to leave him alone if she didn’t want him.

He managed to make it through another five minutes of her pitiful gibberish before excusing himself and hanging up. The chicks were still going at it on the TV, and he couldn’t find his vodka. That didn’t matter too much, seeing as he didn’t have any beer left with which to chase it.

The evening was becoming too long. He looked at the clock, which was upside down from the twisted position he had posed himself in on the bed. He tried to make out what time it was, but he couldn’t stop the numbers from spinning. He closed his eyes and held onto the bed as the feeling worsened.

He stumbled into the bathroom and bent over the toilet just in time to vomit. He wiped away the tears that he couldn’t stop from coming whenever he threw up. He tried to gauge if this was going to be one of those rare single-vomit nights. Not so lucky, he thought as he puked again, and again.

When he thought he was mostly done he curled into a ball. He had one last thought before passing out on the floor of the bathroom, arms wrapped around the base of the toilet, hoping that the experience of being twenty-five would be better than the past year. Another shitty birthday.