Onward Steps: Grisfleur Floating

The world fractured into retina spots, a prismatic spray of colour. Sound arrived through the rushing sluice of blood that drowned any noise that possessed anything of subtlety. His swollen tongue moving dumbly in his mouth. He pressed the button that released more pain medication into his bloodstream, an ugly smile spreading across his face. He was basically blind to all intents and purposes and didn’t see the disgusted reactions of those who passed by him. If he had seen them what could he say? Some guttural noise would have issued forth.
They wanted to pull the curtain around him but they were hoping that the movement and light, which was registering to some degree, might actually help his eyes heal. They were worried that he was over-using the medication and after he bribed someone to smuggle him some booze in and he nearly choked on his vomit they held a meeting to determine what the best possible course of action was. It was obvious that he had a problem — that they could trust him around narcotics as they would have been able to trust him around a single malt. They searched his records and it showed what they had suspected — that he had once been admitted after ODing on heroin and had been released straight into a detox program (the only way according to the notes that he could avoid a prison sentence).
His thoughts revolved around that drink that he had gone for with that woman. Why had he let it all go so sour? So what if he wasn’t interested in anything beyond a friendship, wouldn’t that have been something at least? Instead of trying for that he had walked out of that place and gone looking for self destruction. Was it that it seemed an easier option? Something that he was familiar with maybe? He didn’t want to answer the question — he hated answering questions: that was why he drank. But part of him was coming to realise that if he didn’t actually do something with himself and start taking control of his life then it was all going to ebb away.
He thought that it was day three that his vision actually shifted from being a series of indistinct blurs into something with greater resolution. It was possible that he would recover completely but at the moment that seemed far off. It gave him a headache to focus on any one thing for too long. He got frustrated when he tried to speak. The only time he felt ok was when the cold search of the drug through his veins made the world float away. He hated this place — marooned here amidst all these people with their false cheeriness and their all too real nosiness.
The will to do something that would change the course of his life and win him back a future was becoming diluted in the drug. Such a short time spent drifting in that Lethean substance and the need to do anything was sifted out of his thoughts. Darkness seemed so appealing — to embrace the blankness would be the thing; that might save him in some way. In some fundamental way a retreat into some blanketing narcotic haze might be just what he needed.
He knew that they were monitoring how often he pressed that button and for how long but he didn’t care. What were they going to do? Put him in rehab? He had been there before and it wasn’t so bad — what, being surrounded by loads of so-called ex-addicts who all had great ideas on how to smuggle drugs? If they thought that those units were drug free they were kidding themselves. He would be able to get high there easier than he could out in the world. It was a long time since he had felt the need for anything this hard but the drink didn’t seem to be taking the edge off in the way it always had in the past. Drink allowed, in fact led to, too much thinking. He just wanted to shut out the mental noise and he knew that hard drugs might be the only way that he could truly hold onto his sanity. He wondered why they didn’t just unhook him from this junkie life support system. Was it because he was paying for the privilege of being here? Maybe so.
He had decided to give it two more days and then he would discharge himself before they could do anything. He dialled down his usage of the drug he was supposed to be allowed to take as much of as he wanted and willed himself to be ok until he could get out there and get something serious sorted out. He explained the habit as being addicted to the avoidance of pain rather than being addicted to the drug. And as soon as you started making excuses like that, he knew it himself, you were lost.
The first day was ok on the limited dosage — there was still enough of the stuff in his system to keep him ticking over, but by the time the second day rolled in he looked bad. He looked like someone that had been jonesin’ for a fix for ages. Still, he had decided that he was doing this to a strict timetable and that was that — no deviations. He was in great pain and he hated pain more than most — he had a very low pain threshold — in fact he believed that he went so far in the opposite direction that he was possessed of some preternatural hypersensitivity.
As the second day wound on he knew that he was not going to make it. There was a fire in his veins and his skin crawled. He made his way into the bathroom and, after splashing water on his face he tried to mentally correct all the oddness he perceived in himself — the bugging eyes, the nervous tics, and the sweating. He was going to leave early. He needed something: something stronger than they were going to be willing to let him have. Plan be damned — deviations were just nature’s way of telling you that your plan needed changing.
Grisfleur dragged himself to the checkout desk and asked for his signing out papers. They looked at him like he was insane and they were preparing to call someone. A commotion broke out in the waiting room though and his situation was suddenly downgraded — the receptionist handed him the form he needed to fill out. He did it at lightning speed, not really caring whether the information was correct or not. He just needed to get out, get out and get something. He was driven. Driven by a desire that had diminished all other considerations.
The taxi picked him up right outside the hospital, the driver happy to oblige someone who looked like they had really been through the wars. The driver thought nothing of stopping in a neighbourhood so obviously on the slide. Thought nothing of the trip to the pharmacy. To be fair the driver was not overly concerned with anything his passengers did as long as they gave him his money at the end of it. He had seen some things in his time behind the wheel of this car and he knew that hardly anyone would believe him if he tried to tell them.
Grisfleur got back in the cab. Looking for a second like a different man — that sense of junkie victory blooming through him. He knew that from this place it wasn’t far to his home. He was watching the time all the way there. Trying to keep that edge of desperation out of his voice, though something in him sensed the driver didn’t care that much. Desperation translated into money for the driver in the same way it translated into money for the dealer.
He took no notice of anything in his house — he could have been anywhere; the only reason this place was good was that it offered guaranteed safety. He cooked up what he had bought, sucking that psychic dirt up into the needle, tying off his arm, finding the perfect vein, and bang it was in him, its tongue speaking that liquid language into his soul.
A sluice of thoughts poured through his mind like rush hour traffic just released from a cage of gridlock. How had he got here? How had he exchanged one addiction for another? Why was he scaling up his efforts in self destruction? It felt like he had been falling for so long and now he had just opened up the abyss. He screamed, a ragged sound that was filled with pain, hopelessness, anger. His eyes brimmed with tears, his bottom lips quivered. And then he nodded out. That first nod, as if affirming where he was going. A second nod and Grisfleur was floating.