echnically I'm sick. I don't know what I'm doing here, when I'm going, I just lie in bed. I'm just sitting here and I realize it's nice to sit and stare. The mediocrity mills around me except for the girl with the bald black head. She is gone now, passed around the corner as the radio groans, fuzzes, and squelches out nothing. Lately it seems as if time is passing quickly. Not quickly life a passing car but blasting through us like a screaming freight trains, bringing the unholy end. What can be done but to accept it. Acceptance of your death is bullshit as people are growing older, colder and sadder. I struggle to figure out if this last year was bad or good. The bad is hard to overlook. Like David Garmen Jette. He was one of the best so a train mauled him and death took him at the age of twenty-five. He picked the wrong place to take a piss, so its is easier to accept my near death and broken head. Now I sit and sit and sit and sit, waiting on instructions on what to do, how to do it, and where to do it at. This is my day. A day when a woman's smile is a very good thing. A day when Christmas has been canceled.

It is December twenty-fifth and a hangover kills. I'm sick. Not sick in a physical way but sick in the mind. I've really taken time to check myself but I guess that can't be good thing. I open my eyes and I see a ceiling that I have never seen before. I also notice a warm body next to mine. Who is she, where am I, and what am I doing here?

The gates are black and gold in this city I call home. This is a city of orphans, drones, and painted skeletons. It seems like no one is from her because no one has family from here. A friend said the other day that Christmas is canceled. I guess he was wrong because the roads are empty. Who would cancel Christmas? It is the day of the Lord and someone called Santa Claus. We have been trained from day one by religion and our government to look forward to it. I look around and no one seems to care, in fact they look desperate.

"Did you do her in the read, you little fuck?!!!" he voices quite painfully.

"Did you like it while she sucked your cock?" he says again.

"You are a punk-assed little bitch!" The blood streaming out of my nose accentuates my face as I smile.

2. accent /'ak-,sent, ak-'sent/ vb: STRESS, EMPHASIZE

don't know why but the first punch made me bust up laughing. Sure it hurt, but in my paranoid mind I think I deserve it. Fuck, maybe I did deserve it. I did get with a chemically imbalanced guy's ex-girlfriend. A second blow lands against my temple. I see grey. I slur the words for I am drunk. "But when I first came here... when I first came here you said everything was cool."

"Well, I guess I changed my mind." Another punch lands, this one hurts.

Rebecca is sitting on top of a bench outside of the bar. She starts to vomit. She starts to vomit a lot. When she's done she looks at me crookedly and snarls through a puke-soiled mouth. "Chris, you know I don't want to see you get hurt, but... that's what you get."

fter hearing this I decide to go outside. I ride my bike over to Amy's flat. She seems happy to see me, so I guess I have a Christmas date. She is a very beautiful girl. Shoulder length hair and a very strong body that looks like a Christmas present itself. "You get good deals when you sleep with the dealer." I smile because I know what she says is true.

She looks at my face after she says this, then she notices my colorful face. "I'm not going to ask, because I think I know."

"Thank you." I answer not caring. "So what's up with tonight?" I ask.

"In one hour it will all be good," so sayeth the one called Amy.

his is some fucked up shit, I think we got burned." Barry is fairly agitated. I grin and I cringe as I hear this.

"Hey, how do you keep a blonde from drowning?" Barry looks around the room with a leer.

"You take your foot off her head." He informs us.

Barry slowly moves a lighter underneath the night's buy. Laura had gone to the Safeway pharmacy, she has a nice, fresh, shiny new supply of clean needles. The brown liquid in the spoon starts to bubble and boil. It seems the heroin mystique centers a lot around rock and roll musicians... I think. Kurt Cobain, I mean what the fuck was his problem anyway? He made good music and he got paid for it. He also had heroin. Do I understand? Can you understand the quirkiness of pushing a sharp needle into an exposed vein? Pulling the syringe and drawing back blood. Make sure you hit the vein and push. Your breath leaves the mouth very soon after the initial plunge. After this comes the high or should I say low.

Who left you alone ,was it Jesus Christ? Flowing in your blood, does it feel nice? Who left you to die, does it feel right? Oh, love of drug.

hen I was younger I didn't think about it but now I do. This all about sensation, and different forms of sensation. What is the party lifestyle? I think most of us have seen it. I see things slow down; I see things blur. I'm looking at a room through a new enhanced vision. I don't know where the myth of junk sickness comes from, but it's never happened to me. What is it that makes you lose your guts? It just feels great.

"Vapors man, that's my favorite part." I'm fucked up now and you can hear it.

Yea yo, it's all about shooting dope and fucking in the streets." Barry laughs, coughs, and smiles after saying this. There are the four of us sitting cross-legged around a coffee table. Everyone has proceeded with the same procedure, we are fucked up junkies. "I don't know about that fucked up dealer old town freak but this is strong shit."

Amy says this, then gets up and stumbles toward the bathroom. Over the music we don't hear her retch.

I do not think for one instant about how Amy is feeling but about how I feel. I feel fine. The H is flowing slowly from my blood to my brain and I feel fine. My vision narrows a bit and everything seems weirdly hazy. How can such a fucked up procedure end up feeling so good.

I stand up slowly. "I'm going to check on Amy... she don't like that puking shit."

I stumble into the lavatory, kind of like Amy did. I walk in and disappear. That's when I start screaming.

"You fucking bitch!!" I howl, then I start crying. "Why you got to do this?"

The shooting gallery hits the bathroom; we all stare. Amy is wedged between the toilet and the bathtub. Her eyes are open and she's smiling. The front of her is covered with items from her innards. I touch her and I know she is quite dead. Blood pours from her nose.