I imagine this scene happening in some desolate, spectral landscape full of ghostpeople and invented weather patterns

I imagine this scene happening in some desolate, spectral landscape full of ghostpeople and invented weather patterns. I'd be alone and intoxicated, both for some unspecified reason. You will see me emerging from the shadowy hills that are constantly morphing into crumbling ash-peaked mountains and empty skyscrapers. The indigo moon would just be appearing in the apocalyptic green sky as the ultrawhite sun sets for one last time.

You, my old friend, would be sitting on some curb removing your crumpled tie and avoiding eye contact with a broken, taped up girl. The taped girl would stumble away and fall into a puddle of black shit before realizing her fate and watching it gobble her up like a hungry, nightmarish monster.

You'd refocus your night pupils and I'd notice you through my double vision: you and your electric doppelganger converging and exploding into pixilated light shows. You seem indifferent to the distorted world we are in. I guess I'm just easily distracted. I have been since I arrived in this New Life. I was so distracted I didn't even know when I got here.

I reject my usual wanderlust and sit down next to you. I adjust my falling-out hair. You nod your head and dispassionately mutter a greeting. I awkwardly reply with a hello, still wondering which one of my old chums you even are. The phantom static that dances over my eyes might be the cause of this confusion. You open your mouth and I hear notes from songs we used to love. Now I remember. I can clearly see your messy black hair and regretful eyes. A proud posture that fools no one. I haven't seen you for so long.

In the reflection of neon ectoplasm spilling out of a rusted pipe, I watch memories replay from years ago. We look at each other. Your face, like the skyline, seems to mutate. I see a shy childhood projected on this cool bachelor face you're wearing tonight.

Don't you want to go back home?

I am only just reopening this pocket of thoughts; vacuum stored away by whoever hijacked my mind and transplanted a machine cog for my brain.

A stray cat wanders by and rubs against my skeleton legs as my cat used to. He ran away recently. I think it was the cat. Did I even have a cat? Old Life memories are hard to recall, especially when they—I stop rambling to myself and ask how you are.

“Lost,” you say.

And I'm surprised at your candid answer. Then I realize you are being literal. Typical of me to put the figurative first.

I say, “I'd be lost in this place too, wherever we are.”

I look out in the distance and notice that the mountain city has melted into a fuzzy dark ocean of emulsified Polaroids and slow moving mud. The sky is now a golden atomic atmosphere; it is also moonless. I look behind me, and see that we are now sitting by the familiar convenience store where we used to hang out. Of course, only dying animals and drug addict types inhabit it now. Still, a warm light illuminates the cracks in the boarded-up windows.

We have nothing to talk about. Our lives are so different now. I revive the conversation with a prompt about that time we were running down some dilapidated train tracks. That was back in our Old Life.

My mouth keeps talking while I begin to look around. That's the one advantage about this new self. My mouthperson can stay while the brainperson floats away. I abandoned the body itself long ago. I see that the sky is still gold, but there is now precipitation. Not rain. We don’t have that here. It's more like oil splattered with blood or Tylenol. It falls in a liquid curtain instead of droplets. It's disgusting and looks quite grotesque when the ocean consumes it. I decide that I will ask you if I can help you to get unlost. If i can help you wake up, run away, fall in love, inject, inhale or whatever it is that will transport you away from New Life. I've tried all those things, and I'm still stuck going painfully forward.

For a second, the view flashes to a blue sky with fluffy clouds and unthreatening birds and planes. I'll tell you about that too.

But when I come back, you're gone.