Into the Abyss

The event in question

Day 1: Let's get this party started. A six pack of beer and a locked front door, I'm ready to rock.

Day 2: Upon waking, my head feels as if a 12,000 piece marching band has reached its crescendo. There is only one cure. That I can think of. Start the party again. At 9:00 a.m.

The party starts and its working out OK. The band has since stopped playing its, "Ode to the idiot you are," and my head feels fine. Soon enough, it feels more than fine...It feels like a party again. The band is back, but they've since tailored the music to my liking. I'm enjoying this...Uh-oh, I'm almost out of beer. Beer is such a waste. I might as well get vodka, as it is a much better value if you consider the cost per gram of alcohol. Why don't they include that sign under the product, much like they do when you buy cheese. $3.49, or 12.9 cents per ounce. I guess I'll never understand.

Day 3: Day 2 never really ends, though it is interrupted by a fit-full period of rest, totaling approximately 2 hours. "The drums, the drums, the drums," courses through my mind non-stop. More alcohol is the only thing that can shut it up. And shut it up it does. I never get back to the partying point, but at least the madness is at bay. I am stricken by the sense that this will all end badly, possibly catastrophically, though I have no choice but to continue, to delay the inevitable.

Day 4: Sitting in a chair, I haven't bathed in days, watching re-runs of the blank television screen between bouts of medicating myself and smoking cigarettes. Reality has taken on a new form. It is not real, none of it is. But it is the only reality that I have. I feel that my head is a vacuum. Nothing is in there. I can't stop my self from pondering the eternal bliss of nothingness. I have not slept. I walk like a robot and my previously athletic, well-conditioned body refuses to do what I tell it to, or my mind refuses to tell my body what to do. Maybe both

Day 5: I can't go on, I have to find a way out of this! I ask for help from a previously spurned lover, who gladly tells me that I am pathetic. I beg her to help, to take me to the hospital. I am going to die. My internal organs are on the verge of failure, and I can feel that it is so. She relents. I am taken to the ER. One of the toughest decisions of my life. I am there for six hours. My kidneys and liver are both on the verge of failure. I survive. This time.

Day 6 and 7: I fitfully toss and turn in a bed, drenched in sweat and shaking like a maraca. I still feel like I'm going to die and hope that it happens soon. What have I done to myself? In one weeks time, I erased relationships and chances.

Day 8: I finish writing.

Scott Jeffries