"Stream of (Losing) Consciousness"

I. Tuesday Evening (Katie).

"Are you alright?"

"What?"

"Is there something wrong?"

He gives you that crooked grin of his. The one that tells you, Hey, life's a joke.

"No. What makes you think that?"

"I don't know. You just get quiet sometimes and I wonder what you're thinking."

"Nothing interesting enough to put into words. 'Something wrong'. With me? Don't be ridiculous, kiddo."

He puts his hand on your head and messes up your hair, the way grown-ups used to when you were a little girl to say exactly the same thing he won't say now; I'm not alright, not at all, but don't you worry your little head about it, okay, sweetie?

Just...you'd tell me if there was something going on...right?"

"Sure I would." Not a chance.

"...Okay."

"I'll see you tomorrow, 'kay?"

--

II. Wednesday Morning (Danny).

Why can't you stop waking up?

Reliving all the great mistakes again, playing them in your head on a sadistic and endless loop. "Your Sad Life" on re-run, people watching it worldwide on plasma screen t.v.'s. They're the tiny whatever moments that others can forget or write off. But for you, they're always there to haunt, to define.

The stupid fights. The teenage insolence. Bad grades. Insecurity. Never knowing the right words till it's too late, so you always say the wrong ones. Drinking and puking and thinking maybe this will help get rid of the world (for a few hours, at least). Betrayals, some of them yours. Your mother's tears. And your father--he's such an imposing, but pathetic figure, isn't he? The weight of everybody's idea of the world on your scrawny shoulders. Another pill, another night you can't remember. Sometimes you throw up and you don't even have to. The girl that got away. Nightmares that are so fucking scary because there's no monsters in them at all, it's the real world you're dreaming about and everyone in it is disappointed with--or angry at--or doesn't give a shit about--YOU.

"Regret is the only thing that lets people accept change", she told you once. "So we can outrun the past." But what can you do when you break that barrier and realize that your future is nothing more than a lifetime of more fuck-ups as yet unfulfilled?

...You can remember times when you actually enjoyed getting high with her...

And the greatest regret is knowing that all these secret sins of yours add up to shit. The most awful thing you've done or will do is kid's stuff next to anybody else's problems.

"You're not a monster!" she screamed, even though you couldn't hear her then. Maybe she was right, but sometimes you really want to be and feel like the villain in everybody's story.

"Even in our darkest hours, we'd still rather tread through this world blind and alone than bother someone else for help."

...You ran around the playground with a bottle in your hand and you both felt like little kids again...

It gets so bad that you feel like you have to apologize to people just for loving you.

On one of those dumb little high school notes you wrote her: The day you know you're going to die is the day you're truly free. She thought it was so romantic, so cool. She thought you were joking.

A psychiatrist without a face: "Is your depression genuine or do you just get off on being miserable?"

What the old woman told you before you got drunk again after a year of being sober: It's hard to stay down-to-earth when you dream and feel meant for the stars, isn't it, child?

"It's always sunset in my dreams," she said you said one night when you were stoned. What does that mean?

...There used to be days when your smile wasn't just self-defense...

And your only reply to all of this is;

"We just

We just have

We just have to

We just have to accept that, sometimes

Sometimes

Sometimes, giving up is the only answer."

"The only answer.

The only--"

"--You could've been something--"

"We just have to accept that, sometimes, giving up is the only answer."

One time, she said,

"There's no easy way to hit bottom. If the

f

a

l

l

doesn't kill you, the fact that you're still--"

"--Alive?" someone sobs.

"--will."

Is this really happening?

"There's never going to be a day when you don't feel this."

Is this over yet?

Is this over yet?

Is this over

and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and

It's over for you but the story keeps on going. They say they liked your chapter best, though. You're their favorite tragic ending.

"Why?" someone asks.

--

III. The Hospital (Katie).

"I'm sorry, miss. He's not going to wake up."

Somehow, you aren't surprised.

--

IV. After The Fact (Katie).

At the funeral, you start to giggle and can't stop. It gets so bad that everybody starts to worry and your parents have to take you home.

When you go to bed, you don't dream about him. You don't dream about anything.

--

V. Sunday Morning.

"Katie, wake up, honey. ...Katie?"