BillyPilgrim
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2009
- Messages
- 16
If anyone can suggest a proper thread I'd appreciate it. I've got to go cut my legs off now, or at least hop from one to another in spastic fashion.
Kilgore was twenty days without methadone. He’d managed to sleep from 8 in the morning to about four in the afternoon. Eight hours, certainly not an undisturbed slumber by any means but five more than he’d gotten since day three of his last dose. The decision had been partly his. For brevity’s sake due to financial restraints and a scheduling miscommunication that he blamed on the clinic he’d missed three days, third day being a Friday he’d have to restart on Monday. The longest weekend he’d ever experienced passed eventually. Being destitute and without old connections he had to suffer through. When Monday rolled around he found himself facing an old foe, paruresis. He simply can’t pee in front of people unless certain conditions were met. Most important of these was to be a bulging bladder and a beta blocker. He’d made sure to do both well before arriving but his intense social anxiety was amplified by the withdrawal. In desperation he had to sit on the toilet, which generally works as a last gasp effort, albeit with a lot of gas and the occasional ummmm, evacuation. The usual drop (their friendly euphemism for drug test with a guy watching everything) observer was a dandy middle aged black dude. Kilgore liked the guy and he was always patient and never made a big deal about the sitting down to pee thing, or anything else that might come with that. The two hour window for “stat” drops passed. Kilgore left, the brief respite brought on by Imodium and the promise of a dose at noon vanished replaced by an aching overall misery. Tears stung his eyes as he approached the bus stop. “Why can’t they just take blood?” he asked himself bitterly. At around 3 the next morning he’d vowed not to subject himself to that humiliation again. Day melted into miserable day. Hardcore sickness came and went with alarming irregularity. On day 18 the leg cramps returned with a vengeance only to mellow by the next morning. The vacuum that was his life loomed large. Thirty years old, living in his parent’s garage. No sex in over six years. No friend in the world. A 10th grade education. Self pity wracked him and he found himself listening to piano covers of Joy Division and The Cure on YouTube, imagining himself playing them himself and receiving adoration. The flights of fantasy seemed almost tangible for a minute or so and then he’d find himself weeping at his loneliness the next. He found himself emailing his ex-girlfriend that he hadn’t seen in person in over five years a few times a day with mostly self pitying drivel like this. Kilgore was inspired to write while re-reading The Slaughterhouse Five (whence came the moniker) just an hour ago and was about to give it up for the night. This exercise had revealed an unwelcome truth. Just like the decision to quit ‘done was only partly his and partly his embarrassment and circumstance, Kilgore realized that most every decision he’d ever made fit this same pattern.
Kilgore was twenty days without methadone. He’d managed to sleep from 8 in the morning to about four in the afternoon. Eight hours, certainly not an undisturbed slumber by any means but five more than he’d gotten since day three of his last dose. The decision had been partly his. For brevity’s sake due to financial restraints and a scheduling miscommunication that he blamed on the clinic he’d missed three days, third day being a Friday he’d have to restart on Monday. The longest weekend he’d ever experienced passed eventually. Being destitute and without old connections he had to suffer through. When Monday rolled around he found himself facing an old foe, paruresis. He simply can’t pee in front of people unless certain conditions were met. Most important of these was to be a bulging bladder and a beta blocker. He’d made sure to do both well before arriving but his intense social anxiety was amplified by the withdrawal. In desperation he had to sit on the toilet, which generally works as a last gasp effort, albeit with a lot of gas and the occasional ummmm, evacuation. The usual drop (their friendly euphemism for drug test with a guy watching everything) observer was a dandy middle aged black dude. Kilgore liked the guy and he was always patient and never made a big deal about the sitting down to pee thing, or anything else that might come with that. The two hour window for “stat” drops passed. Kilgore left, the brief respite brought on by Imodium and the promise of a dose at noon vanished replaced by an aching overall misery. Tears stung his eyes as he approached the bus stop. “Why can’t they just take blood?” he asked himself bitterly. At around 3 the next morning he’d vowed not to subject himself to that humiliation again. Day melted into miserable day. Hardcore sickness came and went with alarming irregularity. On day 18 the leg cramps returned with a vengeance only to mellow by the next morning. The vacuum that was his life loomed large. Thirty years old, living in his parent’s garage. No sex in over six years. No friend in the world. A 10th grade education. Self pity wracked him and he found himself listening to piano covers of Joy Division and The Cure on YouTube, imagining himself playing them himself and receiving adoration. The flights of fantasy seemed almost tangible for a minute or so and then he’d find himself weeping at his loneliness the next. He found himself emailing his ex-girlfriend that he hadn’t seen in person in over five years a few times a day with mostly self pitying drivel like this. Kilgore was inspired to write while re-reading The Slaughterhouse Five (whence came the moniker) just an hour ago and was about to give it up for the night. This exercise had revealed an unwelcome truth. Just like the decision to quit ‘done was only partly his and partly his embarrassment and circumstance, Kilgore realized that most every decision he’d ever made fit this same pattern.
