The Menagerie

The mono-filament light tower was a hazy amber, spilling through the half open shutters, covering the bed in a wash of jagged crimson shadows. The wall was a tapestry of blinking yellows, oranges, and violet, mixed with dark shapes like ghosts. Mac closed his eyes to try and shut out the bleaching twilight, but a campfire danced across his retina under his closed eye-lids. There was electricity in his brain as if lightning was striking at the base of his neck, crackling earth towards his temples.

The vapor is wearing off.

Mac took a ragged breath and tried to push himself up out of bed, but only got half-way and laid back down, slowly. An old ship fighting to stay afloat; It would sink this time for sure, he could feel it in his bones. There wasn’t any reason to get up anymore. He looked at his smooth, callous free hands and wished he could have been a laborer; or an artist. A painter would have been nice.

Doesn’t matter now. That's over now.

With a great deal of pain and strength he rolled over to face the window. Clothes, empty food canisters, and empty vapor shots lay everywhere. Sweet rancid air mixed with ammonia and magnolia in his nose. A broken table lay splintered in the corner. A crusted spray of blood washed the jagged pieces of particle wood. A foreign scene for now, but one Mac had seen a thousand times. It would all be back to normal by morning.

Well, almost all.

Through the window he could see the light towers’ monstrous arches ripping the sky open with trestles of fiber-cable, carrying power to the entire region. The mighty squid god, bringing life to a dying half-forgotten species; humanity. At the tower's core the giant squid's mouth gaped, ready to swallow everything whole. In it’s center, shooting straight into the earth, was a pipe of pure silver. Mac spent countless hours as a child staring at this prolific scene, wondering what lay at the end of that passage. But no one knew what was at its source, only that it brought everything which was needed to survive in this hellhole.

Mac blinked hard, pushing his lids together so hard tears poured out at the edges. Every muscle in his body was a bundled cord being pulled apart from both ends with enormous force. The taste of copper and sulfur in his mouth made his stomach start to flip flop. Puking would be a luxury at the moment. He hadn’t had a thing to eat for 4 days. Yet his stomach decided to disagree.

With what little strength he had, he pulled himself to the edge of the bed, simply pushed his face over the mattress and vomited bile onto the floor. Liquid fire in his throat, choking, he coughed to catch his breath and a mist of blood sprayed the wall next to the bed.

That's the price of doing business folks.

He laid there trembling for a moment. When he opened his eyes and looked at the wall, the blood painted scene caused an instant fever to boil his brain. Demon talons gripped his chest, searing lines in the soft tissue and ripping the shallow breath out of his lungs. Then, slowly, it subsided, and he accepted the inevitable. He was almost at peace.

It wouldn’t be long now.

He timed out last week, and had received his last settlement of credits which he almost immediately blew on vapor shots. There was no point in buying rations, or saving anything. He knew he didn’t have the guts to fight on in the black market slums like so many others that could not accept the inevitable end. They traded sex, or drugs, or worse. Some did things that made his skin feel cold and clammy, just for a few more credits. A few more years maybe. A few more days watching the light tower flicker and spit electric ether across the black sky.

What’s the point? I was never that clever anyways. Maybe if i’d been a laborer, i could work under the table jobs for a few years. Who really fucking cares though?

Mac looked at the night stand crusted with food and spilled drinks. With a groan he reached for the drawer, opening it. Spiders had begun to creep at the edges of his vision, scrambling for dark corners of the room only to vanish when he looked at them. Inside the drawer was a single burlap bag. He grabbed it with a sudden sense of terror, imagining he would find it empty. But as he lifted it there was a familiar weight and it bulged in a way that calmed his jagged nerves. A final farewell, Mac’s contingency plan.

One last round, for old time sake. And bartender, make it a double.

Under the tower, when you timed out, you were taken to another region of the exhibit. No one had ever come back, but there were horrible rumors, legends really, of being fed to gastly monsters for sport, and made to run gauntlets pumped full of deforming drugs. Mac had led a short quite life, uneventful really; he had no plan on going out that way.

His trembling bony fingers loosened the draw string and reached in the bag. With great care, as if holding his own patering heart, he lifted 4 shots of vapor out and placed them on the bed next to him. His escape plan.

One shot of vapor gets you the ride of your life, but comes at a cost: the hangover of your life. Two shots will take you to distant universes, even death’s very door; let you kiss his gnarled monkey paw, and wake up 4 days later surrounded by destruction and puke. Which is exactly where he was right now. 4 shots? No one had ever survived to tell about it.

One last ride, a token to tip the ferryman at the river Styx.

Mac cracked the vial in half, mixing the green and blue liquids into a murky turquoise. His guts were a quivering knotted line as he popped the cap and inhaled the liquid steam. Sparks shot across the sky, and a balloon of helium started to fill inside his skull. The light tower started to hum and bubble up like a blister on the face of an oil pit. As he exhaled a long violet cloud poured like dragons’ breath across the room, mixing with the orange and yellow light of the tower creating a disco of flashing, popping sparkles. No one was there, and nothing mattered.

One for me, and three for the ferryman. It’s been fun, but not really. Eat shit and die whoever put me here.

Mac could move now, and think somewhat. He watched the smoke make circus animals and planets against the firelight of the tower. He sat up for the first time in probably days and looked at the room in disgust. He took some satisfaction in the knowledge he would never have to clean again. The other three vials were in his hand, and he studied them briefly. It seemed such a small thing which did so much. Then again, life was such a small thing in the end. The light started to beat quicker against the wall, becoming a strobe. Mac knew his time to make his move was short now. Any longer and the vapor would take over and he would wake days later surrounded by more destruction, and even less vapor to make his move.

He quickly snapped the last 3 vials in half and watched as the blues and greens swam together. Such bright colors make such dark deeds. His heart was a thousand pound rocks in his chest, and he felt a swell in his throat. It was closing and he felt hot salty water running down his face to his mouth. As he licked it away he allowed one pathetic sob to exit his mouth before he popped all 3 caps and breathed in the vapor. Splashing, biting, enraged sharks of emotions dissolved into purple smoke which crept through the air. One final light show, for the good and the bad. As the strobing light of the tower quickened to a solid solar flare, then began to dim, Mac laid back and sighed.

Yeah, i should have been a painter.

The End