Pounding headache. Literally. My heartbeat is in my head, emotions in my chest. Flesh against flesh, bone against stone.
Intense tension. Final decent.
Warm speckles on my face.
There’s his head, much flatter than it should be. There’s the wall, much redder than it should be. There’s me, much happier than I should be.
Probably some kind of reason for all this.
Pills, fire, blood: in that order. Quick flash of a smug policeman, that lazy son of a bitch. He gets paid for his incompetence. I crawl upon broken glass and drink gasoline. I breathe hatred. I tear off my own flesh and bathe in the rain of my darkest desires.
Breathe. I am a slice of toast. Zen breakfast.
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I wrote the first draft of that the very first time I listened to Irony is a Dead Scene by The Dillinger Escape Plan and Mike Patton, particularly the song “When Good Dogs Do Bad Things.” Not the lyrical content, necessarily, but the erratic, bipolar sound of the song is what inspired that vision. The short story that followed was published in my collection, Other Shadows. That book is currently out of print, but the latest revision of the story is now available on my Patreon page.
Joseph VanBuren 