Her face was leaning against the windshield as the brisk November wind
whirled outside the black car. The road seemed to blend in with the rest of
the darkness living outside the world of the car. She was merely an
observer of the other cars on the road being bathed in headlights and
traffic lights. There was an intense feeling of isolation from the non-
addicts in the world. She was in a constant of bliss. However, there would
be the occasional tug on the thread that would attempt to rip that sheet to
shreds. The rip would be mended by the expertise of a needle that was
customized to pierce the skin and be a messenger that brought beautiful
drugs.
The whole start of the needle arm exchange was not that worthy of a Hollywood movie. The scene would be cut and abandoned on the cutting room floor. It'd be left to rot with all of those miscellaneous scenes that could possibly be worthy for DVD extras or possibly even trivia for movie buffs sprinkled throughout the world. The start had been the result of curiosity and boredom on a tropical summer night. Since then, it the needle arm exchange had made its way to Emma's daily routine. It was as necessary as calcium is to bones. If the calcium is not delivered to the bones, the bones become frail and weak. If she lacked heroin in her system, she would crumble. Her emotional stability would crumble. Her physiology would crumble. Her mental function would crumble. Without heroin, she was nothing more than a pile of dust.
Spinner glanced at her from the other side of the backseat as the car drove along the lit road. Her vacant eyes peered over at him before she sent him a vague smile before her face was plastered up against the window once again. Unexplainable depression filled her to the core right about now. She didn't want to go see Spinner looking like he was having epileptic attacks as he played the drums. She didn't want to see Sully passing glances at other girls as his whiny new girlfriend complained about it. She wanted to see herself on the couch basking in the glow of the television as she slowly descended from a heroin high. However, she had gotten dragged into this god knows how. She honestly didn't care anymore.
"Sully, are we there yet," Courtney whined from the passenger seat. If this had been any other male, she would have questioned why they kept Courtney around. However, it was Sully. Sully kept anyone around that would hand out sexual favors on command and had an IQ that was lower than their weight.
The brunette in the front seat had been picked up by Sully at a night club sometime during mid-August. Since that day, they had been entangled in a romance fit for a cheesy television drama. There was fighting and sex and drugs. It would entrance the viewer and hook them in for each week when a new episode made its debut. As Emma knew from experience, Sully's poison of choice was pure Columbian Cocaine. Courtney wasn't an addict. She wasn't one of them. She wasn't worthy of making their former threesome into a foursome. However, as the bright and vivid lights sailed around on the dance floor, a pearly white pill would drop down her throat. She would only do it recreationally, which didn't fit in with the other three. Therefore, she didn't belong.
They pulled into the parking lot that was enwrapped in a stale air mass that seemed to hang above the club. The doors snapped open as Emma gazed at the blank sky. Pulsing music that normally stumbled from the brick building was absent. Dead quiet air was its substitute until a car with the sounds of Pink Floyd thrashing about pulled in the parking space next to them. A curly haired seventeen year old Craig Manning climbed out before acknowledging the members of the foursome while they acknowledged him. Courtney acknowledged him with a bright flirtatious smile that Sully didn't seem to notice or be fazed by. Sully greeted him with a guy nod before leading Courtney towards the club leaving Emma and Spinner to interact with Craig. Craig appeared to have an earthquake running through his body, ready to split him into two jagged pieces.
"Dude, you have nothing to worry about tonight," Spinner reassured him. "We're going to kick some serious ass." Craig continued to have the earthquake surge through him, causing an eyebrow raise from Emma.
Craig growled, "I'm not worrying, it's just that we're only an opening act for Whores on Parade. It's like, everyone's here to see them and not us. Whores on Parade is made up of a bunch of guys in their thirties who are legends back in Toronto."
Spinner stared at him blankly, "Huh? Dude, why aren't you celebrating the fact that we're opening for a bunch of guys who are legends back in Toronto?"
"You get a new perspective on things once you've been up for five days and counting," Craig sighed before running his tremor filled hand through the field of dark brown curly hair. "Speaking of which, you do have my shit, don't you?"
Emma had observed numerous drug deals since she had started hanging around with Spinner. At times, she didn't know what they were. To the eyes of the public, they were a mismatched couple roaming the streets. They were a break-up ready to happen if someone lit the dynamite. To the eyes of their addict friends, they were friends who had the tendency to have benefits when they were intoxicated. However, to Emma, it was a mixture of that. Everything she had with Spinner just blurred together, making a unique situation she never experienced before. It was as refreshing as ice cold water dancing on your tongue and pushing the parched feeling off the dance floor. For once, she felt alive. As the needle pierced her skin, it was then that she was pounded with the realization that she wasn't an empty vessel. As the heroin blocked opiate receptors and created an illusion of perfection, everything was fantastic. For once in her life, she was immune to all of the hell spawn fire she was entrapped in. There was no crying baby to take care of. There were thoughts of death and cancer attempting to haunt here. There was no moronic live-in cousin. There was no mother that barely paid attention to Emma anymore. There was just perfection and the craving for it once it escaped her for a minute or so.
"Of course I do, dude," Spinner replied before being a fisherman to his pockets and searching for a large bass to take a picture with and put on a mantel with other pictures. A bag filled with white powder with clumps of mountains through out was fished out of his pockets instead. He handed the bag over to Craig, whose hands hugged it. "Fresh from Montreal, now pay up."
Craig fumbled through his pockets before pulling out crinkled green paper that would pay for the drug he seemed to be in desperate need for. He muttered numbers as he placed the dollar bills in Spinner's hand which strangled the money before stuffing it into a pocket to die. A smile enveloped onto Craig's face as he shouted a thanks to Spinner before disappearing into the depths of the brick building. Silence echoed from the building as the traffic passing by scattered about Emma's ears. She couldn't wrap her mind around the thought of Craig Manning being addicted to any drug at all. Even when the whole love triangle involving her best friend, Craig, and former fellow environmental crusader was exposed, she couldn't manage to get the image of an eight year old Craig out of her head. There were no words etched across his forehead saying "cheater" and "drug addict". The tainting of Craig Manning had come much to Emma's surprise. It quite astounding, how the deeper she dug into this, the more people there were that seemed to be under the spell of drugs.
"Manning's such a speed freak," Spinner laughed before he wrapped his arm around Emma's waist. At the moment, she wanted to run back into the darkness of the car and answer the cries of her arm that screamed for her to create yet another bruise on her arm from the touch of the needle. After that, she wanted to hot wire Sully's black BMW and hightail it back to her house. However, she was here supposedly for Spinner and Downtown Sasquatch. She only personally knew half of the band and the other half she passed in the hallways at school without so much as a hello. Emma knew Jimmy as the star of the basketball team, boyfriend of Hazel Aden, and Mr. Popularity. Meanwhile, Emma barely knew anything about Marco except for the fact that he was gay. He seemed like a half way decent guy, but they never really bothered to give each other the time of day.
They entered the stale brick building that was filled with the stench of cigarette smoke from some of the people scattered about the tables. The bartenders were at their stations, armed with various bottles of alcohol that were aching to be poured into glasses and intoxicate the crowd at the rotting wood tables. The whole scene seemed horribly unattractive to Emma. At the moment, she honestly couldn't care less about this whole opening act thing for the band. It just seemed to be brought upon by sympathy for them because all they were was an organized mess of instruments playing raucously together in some kind of bizarre melody that was accompanied by Craig and his lyrics that were drenched in being incomprehensible.
Spinner turned to her, "Well, wish me luck. I'll see you later!" He pranced off towards the back part of the building, leaving Emma to entertain herself for the next three or four hours. Sully and Courtney were probably somewhere among the scattered masses, with their tongues down each other's throat as they danced with the danger of possibly becoming another teen pregnancy statistic. Wait a minute, she was alone and armed with a needle and some heroin in the depths of her purse. There was a washroom stall with her name on it, screaming how she could make nice with her drug and everything could seem appealing once again. That seemed to be the ticket for joy this evening. With those sentiments in mind, she made her way through the club towards the washrooms as the sounds of the crowd chattering increased in volume. Before she knew it, Downtown Sasquatch was greeting the crowd with welcomes and the sounds of garage rock on stage. The sweltering humidity produced by the ever rising crowd brought a sweat to Emma's forehead. She had chosen an ideal time to make her appearance in the washroom. No true music fan would be caught dead missing precious moments of dancing and mosh pitting time near the stage to take care of nature's business and cosmetic imperfections. However, Emma was not a true music fan, so she had the right to care for her addiction as the band's music breathed into the club.
The washroom door creaked open and was empty just as she presumed. Potent traces of cigarette smoke crawled into Emma's nose causing a cough to escape from her mouth. Probably about fifteen minutes ago or so, there were girls lining the mirrors as they glossed over their lips and painted their eyes with smoky shades of eye shadow. However all that remained of them was the stench of their cigarette smoke and the abandoned tube of cherry colored lipstick lying dead on the counter. Because of female instincts, Emma felt the need to gaze and analyze her reflection in the mirror that was smeared with eye pencil graffiti and fingerprints. Why would she want to call Heather Sinclair for a good time?
After placing her hands firmly on the counter, she was met by her mirror encased clone that performed the same actions as she did. Straw blonde hair swam off into two separate streams that went down the sides of her face and flowed down her shoulders. Emma reached out and touched it as it fell limp in her hands. Her eyes hid the truth behind the dark smoky eye shadow and mounds of flesh covered foundation. The truth hidden beneath the lies was purple etched on her under eye area and constricted pupils. If the lies weren't there, someone would eventually put their mind to the task and figure out what was really going on. However, they'd just barely begin to scratch the surface. There was so much detail and so many subliminal messages in the story that no one knew about, including Emma. She couldn't manage to separate herself from the action because she was the action. So to separate herself from the action, she would have to somehow crawl out of herself and observe everything from an outsider's point of view.
Emma gave herself a hard stare in the mirror. She felt herself slowly slipping away from sanity. It was probably due to the fact that the last time the drug had entered her veins was nine hours ago. Her arms were howling at her for her to just go into the handicapped stall and nourish them with the press of the needle against her skin. She let out a trembling sigh before dashing into the stall and slamming it behind her and locking it.
Her pure and utter disgust for public washrooms was shoved aside as the craving was chasing her off of the cliff of sanity. She gave herself the assurance that the drug would satisfy her soon. Of course, she needed to perform all of the right preparations in order for everything to go as planned. It was a routine that she just went through the motions of doing, not thinking twice of it in the least. Each craving was her personal ringing timer of when to go through the motions. It seemed as though she was overdue.
Emma plopped down on the freezing tile floor before her purse crashed to the ground. She quickly ripped off her long sleeve raven colored shirt and dropped it to the linoleum floor. Her red blotch painted arms were exposed. There was going to be a time that she would run of veins in her arms and have to resort to mutilating veins in other parts of her body. However, for now, it was just her arms that screamed that she was damaged goods. She worked the belt from the prison on her pants until she had captured it. Its use now was to be wrapped around the area of arm near her shoulder which would enable her to find an acceptable vein. With everything almost ready, she reached for the essential instruments that were scattered about her large crotched purse. She eventually snatched the small bag of heroin, a rusting spoon, and the messenger that went by the needle from the clutches of her bag.
A small percentage of the flimsy plastic bag had been spilled strategically onto metal spoon as she handed it over into her left hand. In her right hand was the baby blue lighter with an orange flame waving to and fro as it made contact with the bottom of the slightly charred spoon. The heroin slowly eased out of its solid form and began to transform into a liquid form that could be easily stored in the needle for injection purposes. The needle kidnapped the liquid heroin and stuffed it within the walls of it. The liquid thrashed about as the tip of the needle danced upon the flesh surface of her arms, ready to pierce through the layers of numerous cells that were guarding the vein. The vein was the roadway that would transport the melted opiate throughout her body. A small piercing pain crawled up her arm as the metal tip shattered the three layers of skin that protected the vein. Heroin seeped into Emma's veins as she pushed down on the plunger. With the heroin having escaped from the needle, some of her own blood got trapped in the grasp of the syringe. The tip of the needle was pointed at the ceiling before she slammed on the end of the plunger and staining the white ceiling with the vermilion liquid.
Her face slammed drifted against the toilet paper dispenser as everything seemed to melt into complete and utter perfection. Emma's eyes kept on closing shut before hazily reopening once more to gaze upon her stall enwrapped world. There was no reasoning behind why she should move from her spot on the floor because everything was just so comfortable. Besides, she was cemented into the dingy tile decorated floor. This was her temporary paradise until the next heroin high came along and whisked her off to the next paradise. It was an endless cycle.
After her eyes closed tight for about the fifth time, they managed to crack completely open. As her glazed over eyes drank in her surroundings, there was something different in the stall. The difference was that the last time she had opened her eyes, she had been alone. Now she was accompanied by a tall very familiar figure that looked at her with a displeased and ashamed look plastered on their face. Emma slinked against the sheet rock wall as she continued to stare at the figure.
"God, Emma, what happened to you," the masculine voice that accompanied the figure asked. Fear washed over her as her tired eyes became fixated on the person that hovered over her. Shallow breathing accompanied her horror as she gazed upon the figure that met her gaze with a disapproving frown.
Her voice slurred, "What are you doing here?"
The figure sighed, "Emma, please, tell me why you're doing this. You're driving your life into the ground and end up killing yourself or someone else in the process. You used to be such a helpful young woman and now...well...it's pretty obvious what you're doing."
Emma continued to give the figure a horrified stare as the back of her head rested against the wall. She was entangled in a web of confusion as her eyes were still fixated on the figure who decided to sit with her on the floor after letting out a frustrated sigh. He shook his head as he looked at the articles of drug paraphernalia scattered about. As he slid over towards her as she backed up further into the wall, wishing it would swallow her up and carry her far away.
"I can't say I didn't expect this," He sighed. "You did this to me when I started dating your mom, so this is déjà vu to me." His fingers brushed against her face as she pleaded for the wall to swallow her up. "Why are you throwing away your life, Emma? Why couldn't you be strong for your mother?"
"Don't fucking touch me, Archie," She screeched with a slur. "I am not ruining my life, okay?! You already did that by dating my mother, getting her pregnant, and then marrying her! If you hadn't done that, then she wouldn't be spending her time staying as far away from our household as humanly possibly! Then she decided it would be such a great idea if she let her idiotic cousin take charge of household and run it into the fucking ground! I'm not doing anything at all! I'm just playing the shitty cards you dealt us by entering our life! So basically, I'm not the one to blame here, Archie!"
Her hand swiped at him as she attempted to push him way. However, he didn't budge or react to her actions. He still sat with his long legs crossed and giving her a sympathetic yet disapproving look. Emma's eyes shot daggers at him as she reclined into the wall as she continued to wait for it to swallow her and transport her to another place.
"Emma, please realize what you're doing," He pleaded. "You're practically a time bomb waiting to go off and I'm really terrified for you. I really wish I could help you." Her eyes couldn't bear to look at his supposedly sympathetic outlook. His absence was the cause for her problems, but he didn't seem to be able to put that through his mind. She glanced down at her hands before a hand wrapped around her wrist causing her to look up at the figure once more. His eyes were no longer sympathetic but cold and piercing.
"Let go of me," She demanded as the hand continued to wrap around her bruise decorated wrist. Her eyes turned into slivers as she attempted to make everything disappear by the closing of her eyes. Paranoia shook her as she plucked the fingers from her wrist. The fingers wouldn't budge as she closed her eyes tighter in order to will everything away.
"JUNKIE," the voice howled before the washroom stall door slammed and Emma opened up her eyes. The hallucinations of her deceased step dad ceased as she peered around her. Paranoia continued to flood her as she continued to peer around. There was probably some additive in the heroin that caused those horrible illusions. The possibility of slowly drifting off into the land of complete insanity never crossed her heroin subdued mind. Instead the yearning for something to alleviate the drying sensation throbbing in her mouth crossed her mind. Nothing happened. There were no hallucinations of Mr. Simpson advising her and her screeching at him. There weren't figments of her subconscious telling her that she had a problem because there was no problem. Everything was completely beautiful and beauty contained no problems. Therefore, nothing had happened and she wasn't losing grasp on her treasured sanity. If she blocked this horrid occurrence out of her memory, then it would disappear into oblivion.
She released her arm from the grip of the belt and wove it back onto her pants. Her shirt was no longer a rag on the dingy tiles and now covered up the truth embedded in the redness of her arms. All of the drug paraphernalia that was scattered about was hidden among the other items in her purse. She groggily got up as she was drunk on confusion and delirium. The washroom stall door creaked as she saw a brunette applying a fresh coat of mascara to her already lengthy eyelashes.
"Thank god I found you," Courtney sighed dramatically. "Spinner and Sully went temporarily insane and bought as much Dr. Pepper as they could after Spinner was done with the opening act. Then they chugged it all down and competed to see who could belch some David Bowie song the best." She rolled her chocolate brown eyes before slumping against the counter. "Ugh, men." She glanced over at Emma with a slightly concerned face. "Are you okay?"
Emma's mind traced back to the hallucinations and the yelling. Emma Nelson wasn't on the brink of insanity. She was a strong and fortified structure that was anything but teetering. If she blocked the event out of her mind for long enough, then it would be erased from the history of events that were unfolding tonight. She had to reassure herself and the bimbo known as Courtney that she was very sane.
"Just a little too strung," She admitted as she gripped the counter in order to keep her balance. "I'm fine though, perfectly fine."
"That's good, I'll tell them I saw you, so no one thinks you were kidnapped or whatever," Courtney informed her before flouncing off in the direction of the washroom exit. Emma glanced at herself one more time. She looked up at her reflection greeting her in the mirror.
"I'm fine, perfectly fine," She whispered to herself before rubbing her temples. "God, I need to be a bit more strung or else I'll go insane." Emma adjusted her purse strap that was clutching her shoulder before heading into another stall as the cravings appreciated getting another dose of heroin. With that extra dose, she would believe herself when she said that she wasn't insane.
The whole start of the needle arm exchange was not that worthy of a Hollywood movie. The scene would be cut and abandoned on the cutting room floor. It'd be left to rot with all of those miscellaneous scenes that could possibly be worthy for DVD extras or possibly even trivia for movie buffs sprinkled throughout the world. The start had been the result of curiosity and boredom on a tropical summer night. Since then, it the needle arm exchange had made its way to Emma's daily routine. It was as necessary as calcium is to bones. If the calcium is not delivered to the bones, the bones become frail and weak. If she lacked heroin in her system, she would crumble. Her emotional stability would crumble. Her physiology would crumble. Her mental function would crumble. Without heroin, she was nothing more than a pile of dust.
Spinner glanced at her from the other side of the backseat as the car drove along the lit road. Her vacant eyes peered over at him before she sent him a vague smile before her face was plastered up against the window once again. Unexplainable depression filled her to the core right about now. She didn't want to go see Spinner looking like he was having epileptic attacks as he played the drums. She didn't want to see Sully passing glances at other girls as his whiny new girlfriend complained about it. She wanted to see herself on the couch basking in the glow of the television as she slowly descended from a heroin high. However, she had gotten dragged into this god knows how. She honestly didn't care anymore.
"Sully, are we there yet," Courtney whined from the passenger seat. If this had been any other male, she would have questioned why they kept Courtney around. However, it was Sully. Sully kept anyone around that would hand out sexual favors on command and had an IQ that was lower than their weight.
The brunette in the front seat had been picked up by Sully at a night club sometime during mid-August. Since that day, they had been entangled in a romance fit for a cheesy television drama. There was fighting and sex and drugs. It would entrance the viewer and hook them in for each week when a new episode made its debut. As Emma knew from experience, Sully's poison of choice was pure Columbian Cocaine. Courtney wasn't an addict. She wasn't one of them. She wasn't worthy of making their former threesome into a foursome. However, as the bright and vivid lights sailed around on the dance floor, a pearly white pill would drop down her throat. She would only do it recreationally, which didn't fit in with the other three. Therefore, she didn't belong.
They pulled into the parking lot that was enwrapped in a stale air mass that seemed to hang above the club. The doors snapped open as Emma gazed at the blank sky. Pulsing music that normally stumbled from the brick building was absent. Dead quiet air was its substitute until a car with the sounds of Pink Floyd thrashing about pulled in the parking space next to them. A curly haired seventeen year old Craig Manning climbed out before acknowledging the members of the foursome while they acknowledged him. Courtney acknowledged him with a bright flirtatious smile that Sully didn't seem to notice or be fazed by. Sully greeted him with a guy nod before leading Courtney towards the club leaving Emma and Spinner to interact with Craig. Craig appeared to have an earthquake running through his body, ready to split him into two jagged pieces.
"Dude, you have nothing to worry about tonight," Spinner reassured him. "We're going to kick some serious ass." Craig continued to have the earthquake surge through him, causing an eyebrow raise from Emma.
Craig growled, "I'm not worrying, it's just that we're only an opening act for Whores on Parade. It's like, everyone's here to see them and not us. Whores on Parade is made up of a bunch of guys in their thirties who are legends back in Toronto."
Spinner stared at him blankly, "Huh? Dude, why aren't you celebrating the fact that we're opening for a bunch of guys who are legends back in Toronto?"
"You get a new perspective on things once you've been up for five days and counting," Craig sighed before running his tremor filled hand through the field of dark brown curly hair. "Speaking of which, you do have my shit, don't you?"
Emma had observed numerous drug deals since she had started hanging around with Spinner. At times, she didn't know what they were. To the eyes of the public, they were a mismatched couple roaming the streets. They were a break-up ready to happen if someone lit the dynamite. To the eyes of their addict friends, they were friends who had the tendency to have benefits when they were intoxicated. However, to Emma, it was a mixture of that. Everything she had with Spinner just blurred together, making a unique situation she never experienced before. It was as refreshing as ice cold water dancing on your tongue and pushing the parched feeling off the dance floor. For once, she felt alive. As the needle pierced her skin, it was then that she was pounded with the realization that she wasn't an empty vessel. As the heroin blocked opiate receptors and created an illusion of perfection, everything was fantastic. For once in her life, she was immune to all of the hell spawn fire she was entrapped in. There was no crying baby to take care of. There were thoughts of death and cancer attempting to haunt here. There was no moronic live-in cousin. There was no mother that barely paid attention to Emma anymore. There was just perfection and the craving for it once it escaped her for a minute or so.
"Of course I do, dude," Spinner replied before being a fisherman to his pockets and searching for a large bass to take a picture with and put on a mantel with other pictures. A bag filled with white powder with clumps of mountains through out was fished out of his pockets instead. He handed the bag over to Craig, whose hands hugged it. "Fresh from Montreal, now pay up."
Craig fumbled through his pockets before pulling out crinkled green paper that would pay for the drug he seemed to be in desperate need for. He muttered numbers as he placed the dollar bills in Spinner's hand which strangled the money before stuffing it into a pocket to die. A smile enveloped onto Craig's face as he shouted a thanks to Spinner before disappearing into the depths of the brick building. Silence echoed from the building as the traffic passing by scattered about Emma's ears. She couldn't wrap her mind around the thought of Craig Manning being addicted to any drug at all. Even when the whole love triangle involving her best friend, Craig, and former fellow environmental crusader was exposed, she couldn't manage to get the image of an eight year old Craig out of her head. There were no words etched across his forehead saying "cheater" and "drug addict". The tainting of Craig Manning had come much to Emma's surprise. It quite astounding, how the deeper she dug into this, the more people there were that seemed to be under the spell of drugs.
"Manning's such a speed freak," Spinner laughed before he wrapped his arm around Emma's waist. At the moment, she wanted to run back into the darkness of the car and answer the cries of her arm that screamed for her to create yet another bruise on her arm from the touch of the needle. After that, she wanted to hot wire Sully's black BMW and hightail it back to her house. However, she was here supposedly for Spinner and Downtown Sasquatch. She only personally knew half of the band and the other half she passed in the hallways at school without so much as a hello. Emma knew Jimmy as the star of the basketball team, boyfriend of Hazel Aden, and Mr. Popularity. Meanwhile, Emma barely knew anything about Marco except for the fact that he was gay. He seemed like a half way decent guy, but they never really bothered to give each other the time of day.
They entered the stale brick building that was filled with the stench of cigarette smoke from some of the people scattered about the tables. The bartenders were at their stations, armed with various bottles of alcohol that were aching to be poured into glasses and intoxicate the crowd at the rotting wood tables. The whole scene seemed horribly unattractive to Emma. At the moment, she honestly couldn't care less about this whole opening act thing for the band. It just seemed to be brought upon by sympathy for them because all they were was an organized mess of instruments playing raucously together in some kind of bizarre melody that was accompanied by Craig and his lyrics that were drenched in being incomprehensible.
Spinner turned to her, "Well, wish me luck. I'll see you later!" He pranced off towards the back part of the building, leaving Emma to entertain herself for the next three or four hours. Sully and Courtney were probably somewhere among the scattered masses, with their tongues down each other's throat as they danced with the danger of possibly becoming another teen pregnancy statistic. Wait a minute, she was alone and armed with a needle and some heroin in the depths of her purse. There was a washroom stall with her name on it, screaming how she could make nice with her drug and everything could seem appealing once again. That seemed to be the ticket for joy this evening. With those sentiments in mind, she made her way through the club towards the washrooms as the sounds of the crowd chattering increased in volume. Before she knew it, Downtown Sasquatch was greeting the crowd with welcomes and the sounds of garage rock on stage. The sweltering humidity produced by the ever rising crowd brought a sweat to Emma's forehead. She had chosen an ideal time to make her appearance in the washroom. No true music fan would be caught dead missing precious moments of dancing and mosh pitting time near the stage to take care of nature's business and cosmetic imperfections. However, Emma was not a true music fan, so she had the right to care for her addiction as the band's music breathed into the club.
The washroom door creaked open and was empty just as she presumed. Potent traces of cigarette smoke crawled into Emma's nose causing a cough to escape from her mouth. Probably about fifteen minutes ago or so, there were girls lining the mirrors as they glossed over their lips and painted their eyes with smoky shades of eye shadow. However all that remained of them was the stench of their cigarette smoke and the abandoned tube of cherry colored lipstick lying dead on the counter. Because of female instincts, Emma felt the need to gaze and analyze her reflection in the mirror that was smeared with eye pencil graffiti and fingerprints. Why would she want to call Heather Sinclair for a good time?
After placing her hands firmly on the counter, she was met by her mirror encased clone that performed the same actions as she did. Straw blonde hair swam off into two separate streams that went down the sides of her face and flowed down her shoulders. Emma reached out and touched it as it fell limp in her hands. Her eyes hid the truth behind the dark smoky eye shadow and mounds of flesh covered foundation. The truth hidden beneath the lies was purple etched on her under eye area and constricted pupils. If the lies weren't there, someone would eventually put their mind to the task and figure out what was really going on. However, they'd just barely begin to scratch the surface. There was so much detail and so many subliminal messages in the story that no one knew about, including Emma. She couldn't manage to separate herself from the action because she was the action. So to separate herself from the action, she would have to somehow crawl out of herself and observe everything from an outsider's point of view.
Emma gave herself a hard stare in the mirror. She felt herself slowly slipping away from sanity. It was probably due to the fact that the last time the drug had entered her veins was nine hours ago. Her arms were howling at her for her to just go into the handicapped stall and nourish them with the press of the needle against her skin. She let out a trembling sigh before dashing into the stall and slamming it behind her and locking it.
Her pure and utter disgust for public washrooms was shoved aside as the craving was chasing her off of the cliff of sanity. She gave herself the assurance that the drug would satisfy her soon. Of course, she needed to perform all of the right preparations in order for everything to go as planned. It was a routine that she just went through the motions of doing, not thinking twice of it in the least. Each craving was her personal ringing timer of when to go through the motions. It seemed as though she was overdue.
Emma plopped down on the freezing tile floor before her purse crashed to the ground. She quickly ripped off her long sleeve raven colored shirt and dropped it to the linoleum floor. Her red blotch painted arms were exposed. There was going to be a time that she would run of veins in her arms and have to resort to mutilating veins in other parts of her body. However, for now, it was just her arms that screamed that she was damaged goods. She worked the belt from the prison on her pants until she had captured it. Its use now was to be wrapped around the area of arm near her shoulder which would enable her to find an acceptable vein. With everything almost ready, she reached for the essential instruments that were scattered about her large crotched purse. She eventually snatched the small bag of heroin, a rusting spoon, and the messenger that went by the needle from the clutches of her bag.
A small percentage of the flimsy plastic bag had been spilled strategically onto metal spoon as she handed it over into her left hand. In her right hand was the baby blue lighter with an orange flame waving to and fro as it made contact with the bottom of the slightly charred spoon. The heroin slowly eased out of its solid form and began to transform into a liquid form that could be easily stored in the needle for injection purposes. The needle kidnapped the liquid heroin and stuffed it within the walls of it. The liquid thrashed about as the tip of the needle danced upon the flesh surface of her arms, ready to pierce through the layers of numerous cells that were guarding the vein. The vein was the roadway that would transport the melted opiate throughout her body. A small piercing pain crawled up her arm as the metal tip shattered the three layers of skin that protected the vein. Heroin seeped into Emma's veins as she pushed down on the plunger. With the heroin having escaped from the needle, some of her own blood got trapped in the grasp of the syringe. The tip of the needle was pointed at the ceiling before she slammed on the end of the plunger and staining the white ceiling with the vermilion liquid.
Her face slammed drifted against the toilet paper dispenser as everything seemed to melt into complete and utter perfection. Emma's eyes kept on closing shut before hazily reopening once more to gaze upon her stall enwrapped world. There was no reasoning behind why she should move from her spot on the floor because everything was just so comfortable. Besides, she was cemented into the dingy tile decorated floor. This was her temporary paradise until the next heroin high came along and whisked her off to the next paradise. It was an endless cycle.
After her eyes closed tight for about the fifth time, they managed to crack completely open. As her glazed over eyes drank in her surroundings, there was something different in the stall. The difference was that the last time she had opened her eyes, she had been alone. Now she was accompanied by a tall very familiar figure that looked at her with a displeased and ashamed look plastered on their face. Emma slinked against the sheet rock wall as she continued to stare at the figure.
"God, Emma, what happened to you," the masculine voice that accompanied the figure asked. Fear washed over her as her tired eyes became fixated on the person that hovered over her. Shallow breathing accompanied her horror as she gazed upon the figure that met her gaze with a disapproving frown.
Her voice slurred, "What are you doing here?"
The figure sighed, "Emma, please, tell me why you're doing this. You're driving your life into the ground and end up killing yourself or someone else in the process. You used to be such a helpful young woman and now...well...it's pretty obvious what you're doing."
Emma continued to give the figure a horrified stare as the back of her head rested against the wall. She was entangled in a web of confusion as her eyes were still fixated on the figure who decided to sit with her on the floor after letting out a frustrated sigh. He shook his head as he looked at the articles of drug paraphernalia scattered about. As he slid over towards her as she backed up further into the wall, wishing it would swallow her up and carry her far away.
"I can't say I didn't expect this," He sighed. "You did this to me when I started dating your mom, so this is déjà vu to me." His fingers brushed against her face as she pleaded for the wall to swallow her up. "Why are you throwing away your life, Emma? Why couldn't you be strong for your mother?"
"Don't fucking touch me, Archie," She screeched with a slur. "I am not ruining my life, okay?! You already did that by dating my mother, getting her pregnant, and then marrying her! If you hadn't done that, then she wouldn't be spending her time staying as far away from our household as humanly possibly! Then she decided it would be such a great idea if she let her idiotic cousin take charge of household and run it into the fucking ground! I'm not doing anything at all! I'm just playing the shitty cards you dealt us by entering our life! So basically, I'm not the one to blame here, Archie!"
Her hand swiped at him as she attempted to push him way. However, he didn't budge or react to her actions. He still sat with his long legs crossed and giving her a sympathetic yet disapproving look. Emma's eyes shot daggers at him as she reclined into the wall as she continued to wait for it to swallow her and transport her to another place.
"Emma, please realize what you're doing," He pleaded. "You're practically a time bomb waiting to go off and I'm really terrified for you. I really wish I could help you." Her eyes couldn't bear to look at his supposedly sympathetic outlook. His absence was the cause for her problems, but he didn't seem to be able to put that through his mind. She glanced down at her hands before a hand wrapped around her wrist causing her to look up at the figure once more. His eyes were no longer sympathetic but cold and piercing.
"Let go of me," She demanded as the hand continued to wrap around her bruise decorated wrist. Her eyes turned into slivers as she attempted to make everything disappear by the closing of her eyes. Paranoia shook her as she plucked the fingers from her wrist. The fingers wouldn't budge as she closed her eyes tighter in order to will everything away.
"JUNKIE," the voice howled before the washroom stall door slammed and Emma opened up her eyes. The hallucinations of her deceased step dad ceased as she peered around her. Paranoia continued to flood her as she continued to peer around. There was probably some additive in the heroin that caused those horrible illusions. The possibility of slowly drifting off into the land of complete insanity never crossed her heroin subdued mind. Instead the yearning for something to alleviate the drying sensation throbbing in her mouth crossed her mind. Nothing happened. There were no hallucinations of Mr. Simpson advising her and her screeching at him. There weren't figments of her subconscious telling her that she had a problem because there was no problem. Everything was completely beautiful and beauty contained no problems. Therefore, nothing had happened and she wasn't losing grasp on her treasured sanity. If she blocked this horrid occurrence out of her memory, then it would disappear into oblivion.
She released her arm from the grip of the belt and wove it back onto her pants. Her shirt was no longer a rag on the dingy tiles and now covered up the truth embedded in the redness of her arms. All of the drug paraphernalia that was scattered about was hidden among the other items in her purse. She groggily got up as she was drunk on confusion and delirium. The washroom stall door creaked as she saw a brunette applying a fresh coat of mascara to her already lengthy eyelashes.
"Thank god I found you," Courtney sighed dramatically. "Spinner and Sully went temporarily insane and bought as much Dr. Pepper as they could after Spinner was done with the opening act. Then they chugged it all down and competed to see who could belch some David Bowie song the best." She rolled her chocolate brown eyes before slumping against the counter. "Ugh, men." She glanced over at Emma with a slightly concerned face. "Are you okay?"
Emma's mind traced back to the hallucinations and the yelling. Emma Nelson wasn't on the brink of insanity. She was a strong and fortified structure that was anything but teetering. If she blocked the event out of her mind for long enough, then it would be erased from the history of events that were unfolding tonight. She had to reassure herself and the bimbo known as Courtney that she was very sane.
"Just a little too strung," She admitted as she gripped the counter in order to keep her balance. "I'm fine though, perfectly fine."
"That's good, I'll tell them I saw you, so no one thinks you were kidnapped or whatever," Courtney informed her before flouncing off in the direction of the washroom exit. Emma glanced at herself one more time. She looked up at her reflection greeting her in the mirror.
"I'm fine, perfectly fine," She whispered to herself before rubbing her temples. "God, I need to be a bit more strung or else I'll go insane." Emma adjusted her purse strap that was clutching her shoulder before heading into another stall as the cravings appreciated getting another dose of heroin. With that extra dose, she would believe herself when she said that she wasn't insane.