This story was first published in “the high bohemian”, 2020. The blog has since been retired but the story like all good things lingered on. As its echoes reached back to me, I decided to give it a new home here. I invite you to read on, without further ado.

Wednesday was a good day. At 8:00 am sharp, his mother rapped at the door. He was already up, staring blankly at the Terrence McKenna Poster with a gun in his hand. He had won that gun in a bet during one of those parties ten years ago.

Ten years, a club downtown. You would find him bobbing his head to the trance rhythm. Music was loud, and drugs were in free flow. Electric juices flowed from the blotter, through his tongue, into his system. The entire room was transformed into a giant hot box. Lasers lit the fumes from one of those smoke machines.

Ten years was a long time ago. All the beats were now dead. He swung around in perpetual doom, smoking his cigarette and playing with his gun. He hadn’t slept in days. He went to sleep one day, and someone else woke up; a disease, he thought.

The paint on the wall was fading, and the posters were all worn out. They had meant something sometime in the past. He didn’t even remember what.

He stubbed the cigarette and hid the gun in the bookshelf. Let’s go out, he said. He opened his wardrobe and picked up an old sweatshirt. He remembered the lost love who’d gifted it to him. He smiled; it’s going to be a good day. He slid out of the room and tiptoed to the door.

“Are you going out?” said the mother. “It’s such a lovely day. It’s good to get some fresh air.”

He tried to rush to the door without replying. The mother looked straight at him, chirping like a sparrow. He stopped. He could not go out. There’s nothing out there. It’s all fiction. He didn’t remember what the streets looked like. Had he ever stepped out of the house? He must have. He took another step. Shut up. “SHUT UP.”

He looked around; the mother had gone off to take the clothes out of the dryer or something. His head was humming with a hundred different voices, and he couldn’t catch one strain of thought. He quietly turned back and went to his room.

He dumped himself on the chair. His table hadn’t been dusted in ages. He looked at the calendar. He hadn’t left the house in almost three months.

He opened the bookcase and took his gun out. He only had two bullets. That’s all you’ll need. He lit up a smoke and went back to bed. He checked his phone. The last message was from two months ago, his ex saying, ‘You have fried your brain.’

He thought about putting some music on but refrained. He looked at his notes; there were plans to put his life back in order. Plans are no good without the drive. He tossed the phone back on the side table and turned away with the same thoughts shuffling in his head. After years of idealizing madness, he finally had it, the ultimate high.

He knew he was only going to deteriorate. He knew he was never going to let them take him. And so he knew there was just one thing left to do. He turned, now lying flat on his back. He laughed. First, he let out a chuckle. Then, a frantic laugh. Oh, everything is so much clearer now. The colors. The mad colors. Oh, if I was a color. I’d be the maddest of them colors.

He went to the kitchen and heated some water. He spilled half the cup, adding the rest to a cup of noodles. Today was the day. He went back to his room. His mother was standing there. “You must let me dust it. Look at all the cobwebs.

He opened his mouth to reply but simply sat on the bed, eating his cup noodles. The mother left. He opened a browser on his phone and looked up, ‘how do you know you are hallucinating?’

He closed the tab. He placed his gun at his temple. Today is the day. Yes, yes! But then something took hold of him. He turned, now facing the bookcase. He hadn’t read anything in a long time. He couldn’t read anymore. A solitary tear rolled down his nose.

Where did I go wrong? He knew.

And then there was the thought. Today is the day. He held his gun to his heart. He had nothing to do with his thoughts that now floated across his mind without drawing his attention. Soon, he drifted off to sleep.

When he woke up, the sun had come down. His room overlooked the sunset. He had always admired that view, digging the vivid colors of the evening sky. When the drugs kicked in, the sight was clearer than reality.

But he had been clean for a week, the hardest thing he’d done. He wanted to be fully conscious when doing it. He was now sure. The thought had come to be the only thing he knew for a fact. He didn’t want it to take over him.

It all started a month back. He had been going through a series of self-diagnoses but wasn’t certain of any, unable to get clean. The world had failed him. He was over the excessive video gaming. He was over the senseless cyberdelics. He decided to end it. He was ready to pull the trigger when the bell rang.

He looked through the eyehole. It was his mother. He opened the door. She was standing on the opposite side of the corridor.

“Your friends told me they haven’t seen you in weeks,” “You’ve become so thin,” and all that nonsense.

He found the words hollow. He found the woman hollow. It was just the things he was trying to avoid. He looked at the mother, and his demons looked back. He couldn’t take it.

Soon, the apartment started getting cleaner with fresh flowers and sunshine. He retreated to his room. And he realized something was off about this woman. And then came the idea. What if this mother is just my hallucination? And that’s how it all began.

He clutched his gun tight. Today is the day. He walked down the hall to his mother’s room. She was sleeping. He aimed. He fired. Her eyes shot open, and traces of life lingered there briefly. Another shot, and she was gone. Blood spilled everywhere, covering his sweatshirt. His heart pumped like an engine. His thoughts cleared in that brief moment. The sound it made was loud. The recoil was harder than he’d anticipated.

There was joy, real joy. No, madness. Yes, it must be madness. He jumped. He ran down the hall. He opened the door and stepped out. He finally got out… He was free. “I am free!” he shouted. He ran down the corridor. He punched the elevator button twice. No. This is too slow. He forced the doors open. There was darkness. Yes. He stepped forward and fell down the elevator shaft. “Yes,” he said in the whisper of his last breath. Wednesday was a good day.