Chapter 7
I awoke to the unforgiving sun glaring through the dusty blinds. I didn’t care about their filth. I turned over trying to dodge the intrusion. No use. As I regained consciousness I noticed the pictures of naked women from last night strewn across the floor.
I was disoriented, trying to come down to Earth. I must have slipped into one of my episodes where I want to be turned on, I want to dive into the deep sea of erotica, and then I snap. All of a sudden I can’t stand it. It’s suffocating, treading heavily on me. I build it up only to tear it down. I taped the pictures up only to lose my cool and tear them down. Over and over, and over, and over again.
Sometimes I didn’t feel like myself. I looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognize myself. I knew I was me, I’m Jim; but did I really know? Do any of us know anything? Are we truly capable of making our own choices or is everything already outlined and we follow the plan as written? Like moths to a flame. Beasts in the wild, looking for the next victim. Every now and then everything seemed so hard to believe.
The clock read two thirty-one in the afternoon. Brushing my teeth felt like a chore. I showered once again and got dressed for the day.
“I am my destiny. I can change things,” I muttered.
First thing’s first, I needed to get out of my head and out of my apartment. Spending my days in a haze of drug-induced euphoria felt nice but I needed to work. I needed to exercise my brain before I no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t.
I pulled on a pair of my best denim jeans and my cleanest black shirt. Fortunately I kept a stash of rolled joints at the ready. I couldn’t proceed without a push first. I smoked a joint to balance myself out. Lord knows I needed it.
