Dimensional Transition (My Short Story)

Discussion in 'The Bookshelf' started by TokinRose, Jun 28, 2014.

  1. Thread idea creds to @GottaStayHigh. It's pretty long, so if you get through the whole thing, I'll be impressed. Yes, drugs were involved in the creation of this story. 
     
    My name is Eugene and I lived in Eugene, Oregon. When I moved here, I knew the city would be my friend since we have the same name, after all. The city was most definitely my friend. How did I know? Well, the ground supported my house and me. The ground of this city was always there underneath me when no one else was. My parents used to be underneath me all the time, until the grasps of the afterlife dragged them into its promise of unending fulfillment. They said that I would achieve unending fulfillment early in life because they were dying and leaving me their fortune, but they didn't warn me about the misery of living life alone. Every day, I talked to everything I saw and the damned things never answered me. I saw them trying to send me signs they comprehended, occasionally, but they never fully broke through their inanimate barrier.
    My car bounced down the long dirt road that lead to a small prefabricated home. Looking out the window, I saw redwood trees melt into each other like tie dye as the tires kicked up dirt into the once clear air. It was a dull day outside, like all the rest. Not too bad, not too good. Just okay. I came to the end of my plot of land and removed the keys from the ignition.
    After climbing a small series of cement stairs, I inserted the key into the lock of my prefab home and twisted it until I heard a click. Then, I threw my body against it to push the too-large door past its warped, wooden frame, making paint chips fall to the ground in a hail of dandruff-like flakes.
    My home was simple. Once in the doorway, there was a small kitchen with all the basics. The once white carpet was irreversibly stained with rat urine produced by beings that most consider so lowly and yet, they won't even talk to me. Sometimes they squeak, but I have enough sense to know that is mostly out of fear for my 5'11” body. On top of that disintegrating rug, sat my television set and Cornelius.
    “Greetings, Cornelius! How was your day?” I asked in a way that was so sweet that, in my opinion, it was irresistible to answer. Cornelius, however, did not reply. His 24 golden buttons stared back into my eyes, but still, he said nothing. I sighed and got out the cloth and leather spray to give him his daily bath. “Cornelius, I know you care about me, but you certainly have a funny way of showing it.” I muttered under my breathe. I rubbed the cotton cloth over his glossy, red leather body. I rubbed between every crack and every curve, ensuring the deepest clean and he thanked me with the gleam of his dust-free skin. His four wooden legs remained still while he waited for my body to return to his warm caress.
    It was time for dinner. I walked through a short hallway filled with piles of stinking refuse and picture framed walls. Pictures of my parents and me in the good days lay encased in glass as if that glass would act as a barrier to keep what happened in the following years separate from those happy memories. On a shelf above the frames, I carefully organized all the empty liquor bottles from their last night in this life. I counted them: one bottle of gin, 2 bottles of premium vodka, 2 bottles of aged whiskey, and 1 bottle of 1948 port wine, complete with one sip left in the bottom.
    They left me watching Tom and Jerry in the living room at around 10 p.m. as usual. My eyes didn't bother to meet theirs as they left the lavishly furnished sitting area because I knew what they were going off to do. I heard the giggling, I heard the crying, and I heard the puking from the floor above me. Then, I heard nothing. For years, the nothing frightened me and I would burst into their bedroom screaming for them, tears racing down my cheeks, asking if they were alright. Their groans and incessant snoring answered my question each time I did this. The mornings after, my parents stumbled down the stairs with purple welts below their eyes and sometimes scolded me for pouring cereal and milk only for myself.
    “Eating the food that I bought without even thinking about serving your father and I some, I see. It's a shame that I raised such a selfish piece of trash.” my mom said.
    “But Mom, you guys don't come downstairs until 11 usually and that's too late for breakfast. I didn't know you would wake up on time today. You never do.”
    “What? Are you accusing me of being a bad mother, you little shit?”
    “I never said that I--”
    “I could kill you! I could throw you against that wall, knock you out, and cut your veins so you would bleed to death before you ever woke back up!” She breathed in heavily. “...but I won't do that because I am a good mother. Tell me I'm a good mother!”
    “Y-you're a good mom.” I stuttered while my tears threatened to choke me. The sound of her vomit hitting the bottom of the large kitchen sink pierced the air as I ran out of the room, sniffling, holding back full on crying to make myself seem tough.
    ...Their last night was different. There were too many bottles and too much nothing for it to be normal. Nothing didn't scare me any more because it happened so often, but I still blame myself for their passing. I should have known what they were taking up there was too much and I should have saved them.
    When I entered the kitchen, my eye was drawn to the red pen mark around today's date on the calendar. “Ah, today's the big day …No need for dinner.” I said out loud. I eyed the black instrument of mercy laying on a rusted folding table. Its textured handle compelled my unwavering hand towards it and my finger slid over the trigger in one seamless motion. Arm muscles engaged as the barrel found its way to my temple and the gunshot reverberated off of every dingy window for a long period of time before I slipped into a deep state of temporary darkness.  
    In the darkness, I saw millions of faceless people lined up in rows around me, all grappling for the same thing I was. I didn't know what we were reaching for at all, but I felt compelled to do it. They mimicked my motions as if I was staring into a six way funhouse mirror, making me so unsettled that I writhed around trying to grab on to anything to keep me from falling into the black expanse that was forming below me. I struggled to hold on to the others, but when I managed to wrap my arms around a person, his body would fade away into steam the color of his t-shirt.
    Suddenly, the drones morphed into a wooden ship's steering wheel, but instead of carved spokes, there were their featureless faces. The wheel spun at a constant pace as it floated through my mind's black abyss. I reached and grabbed for the faces. I could barely hold on to them for a second before some ineffable force dragged me from the spinning helm. It pulled my essence backwards through my life, forcing me to view every memory I'd ever collected. Every moment of my halcyon youth and every second of teenage agony, I relived it. The faces lined up once again, but this time, they were not featureless. I could see that each one was a person who I'd known at some point in my life.
    Like a deer's eye caught in headlights, I whipped my face around to meet Cornelius'. His buttons glinted into my eyes and he walked towards me on all fours. Warm saltwater fell down my face. There was no point in stopping it now, so I let it fall along with my chest and breathing. I let them fall up and down rapidly, violently, like I had never done in front of anyone before. Only this fit was different because I was smiling the entire time.
    “Cornelius! My boy!” I shouted.
    The voice did not come from my physical body. It seemed to ooze out of every molecule, which led me to realize that I was intertwined into the essentia of this alternate dimension. I was at the core of every movement made by the familiar faces and everything that I saw. It was a world in which you could make things occur, but they would only occur in your small corner of the universe where nothing actually existed except your eroding soul. The troubles of life wore into it until its only way to carry on was to escape to a dreamlike realm that eternally attempts to heal it. Your essence resides here forever, endlessly contemplating while collecting pleasant feelings.
    Cornelius pressed against me so hard that I could feel his wooden frame through the leather and padding. “You are my friend.” he announced as if the statement had been on his lips for twenty years. Cornelius is my real friend.
     

     
  2. if you want the general plot: it's a crazy guy who ends up committing suicide. 
     

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