"All this has happened before. All this will happen again."
– Battlestar Galactica
The ritual is not as important. Not this time. The destination is what Jim is after. Someplace far away and insulated from the life he had crafted and shared and seen torn asunder in a fraction of the time. Preparations made Jim looks around the room and then down, taking a moment and suddenly very mindful of what he is about to do, considering it with an eye for the future.
When everything is ready for his journey Jim pushes– no, slides– the needle into his vein and his thumb gently presses on the plunger a moment later. It is not a rush and only the psychological effect of his indulgence is instant.
A warm blanket gets laid over Jim after moments that would only matter to an outside observer. There aren't any here. The covering slowly gets heavier and heavier, pressing out the anxiety first, and the room this creates soaks up refreshing nothingness. Leaves him alone with himself floating in a calm sea. Relaxing the tight grip of his fist made to raise blue lines on his arm, he next slouches further back into his arm chair, chin nodding forward onto his chest and eyes drooping closed as fallen curtains.
Jim could chase this forever and so he does. The air rushes out of him as the room, superimposed on the back of his eyelids like some mixed media creation out of neon and mother of pearl, fades away. Without the buoyancy reality lends his consciousness he dives beneath the surface. Unlike many he can and he does go deeper into that darkness that envelopes him next. There is nothing scary about it.
Jim moves through it without burden and who knows how long later washes up onto a sandy shore. The grains sparkle and are baked in the sun, seeming to contour to his body as he rolls onto his back. He coughs and can taste then feel salty sea foam run down the side of his mouth before he can finally fill his lungs with fresh air.
After staggering to his feet and finding his balance Jim begins to realize how weakened he feels. Drowsy from his voyage. And in the shade of a palm tree he curls up to find something like sleep. Again his eyes close.
The shade grows icy and begins to leech the life from Jim. He can feel his skin burning in the frost under the persistence of a freezing wind. It is almost as if the flesh is being ripped away from his very bones and his muscles refuse to move as hypothermia sets in, only allowing the twitching shivers of a final dance after too much revel.
The needle hangs out of his arm, skin pinched by the rubber tube under his bicep, and the side of his face and front of his t-shirt are muddy with chunky vomit.
The image worms its way through his drug-induced haze as Jim's eyes flutter open in the midst of what could only become a seizure. As he bites his tongue blood begins to trickle down the corner of his mouth and onto the rug where he's fallen onto his side. He sees all of this in the mirrored sliding doors of the motel room's closet.
The perspective is skewed.
But then again Jim never pushes the needle into his vein. In that moment he had (and in another existence does) he sits there watching it ready to pierce and plunge into skin and knows what will happen and what has happen and does not want to die here. He isn't sure that he does not want to die, though he hadn't though he had hours before or hours from now depending on how you look at it, but he does know he doesn't want to die like that.
Jim's escape will not be such an easy one.
Jim gets up and goes to the bathroom. First, he breaks the needle point off against the tile and tosses it in the garbage. Next, he flushes what can go down the drain without him needing to use the plunger from the utility closet down the way. Finally, he throws up again. Or for the first time.
In any case this time it isn't out of narcotic-induced nausea and it isn't all over himself.
The bags around his eyes are rubbed raw red and the small capillaries on Jim's face are burst giving it a blotchy and blood-flecked look.
Or maybe he doesn't get that far. Maybe he drags himself back by clawed hand over clawed hand. Swims upstream to save his singular species. Manages to stick himself with a syringe loaded with Narcan, the kind he keeps with his works, when he finds himself back in the chair and lucid enough to reach it.
And maybe Jim slumps forward and doesn't fall on his back, but his side. Precarious, but not asphyxiated, the next or other time.
Jim survives and whether it's because he sees or because he reacts makes little difference.
None of these possibilities are so different as the alternatives, but at least no one will find him like that, because eventually Jim gets up and walks to the bed to try and find some rest.
It is a viable alternative to the peace Jim thought he could share.
– Battlestar Galactica
The ritual is not as important. Not this time. The destination is what Jim is after. Someplace far away and insulated from the life he had crafted and shared and seen torn asunder in a fraction of the time. Preparations made Jim looks around the room and then down, taking a moment and suddenly very mindful of what he is about to do, considering it with an eye for the future.
When everything is ready for his journey Jim pushes– no, slides– the needle into his vein and his thumb gently presses on the plunger a moment later. It is not a rush and only the psychological effect of his indulgence is instant.
A warm blanket gets laid over Jim after moments that would only matter to an outside observer. There aren't any here. The covering slowly gets heavier and heavier, pressing out the anxiety first, and the room this creates soaks up refreshing nothingness. Leaves him alone with himself floating in a calm sea. Relaxing the tight grip of his fist made to raise blue lines on his arm, he next slouches further back into his arm chair, chin nodding forward onto his chest and eyes drooping closed as fallen curtains.
Jim could chase this forever and so he does. The air rushes out of him as the room, superimposed on the back of his eyelids like some mixed media creation out of neon and mother of pearl, fades away. Without the buoyancy reality lends his consciousness he dives beneath the surface. Unlike many he can and he does go deeper into that darkness that envelopes him next. There is nothing scary about it.
Jim moves through it without burden and who knows how long later washes up onto a sandy shore. The grains sparkle and are baked in the sun, seeming to contour to his body as he rolls onto his back. He coughs and can taste then feel salty sea foam run down the side of his mouth before he can finally fill his lungs with fresh air.
After staggering to his feet and finding his balance Jim begins to realize how weakened he feels. Drowsy from his voyage. And in the shade of a palm tree he curls up to find something like sleep. Again his eyes close.
The shade grows icy and begins to leech the life from Jim. He can feel his skin burning in the frost under the persistence of a freezing wind. It is almost as if the flesh is being ripped away from his very bones and his muscles refuse to move as hypothermia sets in, only allowing the twitching shivers of a final dance after too much revel.
The needle hangs out of his arm, skin pinched by the rubber tube under his bicep, and the side of his face and front of his t-shirt are muddy with chunky vomit.
The image worms its way through his drug-induced haze as Jim's eyes flutter open in the midst of what could only become a seizure. As he bites his tongue blood begins to trickle down the corner of his mouth and onto the rug where he's fallen onto his side. He sees all of this in the mirrored sliding doors of the motel room's closet.
The perspective is skewed.
But then again Jim never pushes the needle into his vein. In that moment he had (and in another existence does) he sits there watching it ready to pierce and plunge into skin and knows what will happen and what has happen and does not want to die here. He isn't sure that he does not want to die, though he hadn't though he had hours before or hours from now depending on how you look at it, but he does know he doesn't want to die like that.
Jim's escape will not be such an easy one.
Jim gets up and goes to the bathroom. First, he breaks the needle point off against the tile and tosses it in the garbage. Next, he flushes what can go down the drain without him needing to use the plunger from the utility closet down the way. Finally, he throws up again. Or for the first time.
In any case this time it isn't out of narcotic-induced nausea and it isn't all over himself.
The bags around his eyes are rubbed raw red and the small capillaries on Jim's face are burst giving it a blotchy and blood-flecked look.
Or maybe he doesn't get that far. Maybe he drags himself back by clawed hand over clawed hand. Swims upstream to save his singular species. Manages to stick himself with a syringe loaded with Narcan, the kind he keeps with his works, when he finds himself back in the chair and lucid enough to reach it.
And maybe Jim slumps forward and doesn't fall on his back, but his side. Precarious, but not asphyxiated, the next or other time.
Jim survives and whether it's because he sees or because he reacts makes little difference.
None of these possibilities are so different as the alternatives, but at least no one will find him like that, because eventually Jim gets up and walks to the bed to try and find some rest.
It is a viable alternative to the peace Jim thought he could share.