MY DAILY DOSE OF SUNSHINE
February twenty one, two thousand and nine
He closed the door to his apartment, jammed his hand in into his pants pocket, not so easy as all his pants had shrunk as his waist had expanded, expanded as a function of time since he stopped smoking the hard stuff.
His head was full of cobwebs, still foggy from the night’s sleep, as he just barely woke up fifteen minutes ago. Clarity never arrives until he has had a couple of cups of coffee into him, and several hours of conscious awareness.
Walking down the stairs, still feeling achy and sore all over (another thing that lingers ‘round every morning), he opens the door, but forgets to brace himself for the cold.
Luckily, the cold snap seems to have loosened its icy grip on the testicles of the city, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Ten C below zero was easily tolerable, he hated to admit.
He began his walk to the drugstore. It has been so long since his last dose, his stomach tells him. That dirty creepy feelings of sadness, guilt, nausea, and ugliness that signal s the onset, or at least the memory of the onset (both are equally awful), of opiate cravings. He feels like tightly closing his eyes, clenching each and all of his muscles at once and as hard as he can, and thrashing ab out on the cold bare ground. Not really normal to daydream about simulating a seizure.
Instead he reminds himself that the only ways to get rid of this feeling is to just keep walking, let this grey time flow through him and arrive at the end. “Remember”, he says out loud, “only half an hour and I will be starting to feel better”. What he actually means is “…and I will stop feeling worse”, his personal goal in life.
The walk to the drug store follows route 90, a major thoroughfare of the city. Most all the houses on the east side of the street are unoccupied. This was all property of the Canadian Armed Forces. These empty homes used to house the families of soldiers stationed at the army base across the street (the base is now closed). These properties are also at the center of a dispute between the government and a tribe of First Nations people who claim this land as their own. I agree with them, it is theirs.
There is really nothing new to see except the constant stream of cars and trucks whizzing past. Sometimes he would try to capture the feelings of commuters as he looked into their eyes as they passed him by, an exercise in absurdity as most of these were also vacant. Today he thought of how it would take but a momentary effort to throw himself in front of a speeding truck and everything would be better (except for the driver of that truck, and at least he would have a good story to tell). No more memories, no more thoughts, his two worst enemies (to death with his enemies).
Waiting at the intersection for the light to turn, he glanced at the time on his cell phone. This is his only phone, and it is actually on his parent’s phone plan, which is fine with them as they are really the only people he talks to for any length of time.
Green light says go, and quickly after the pedestrian walk sign lights up. He begins again his task of putting one foot in front of the other. He slowly plods along with short, brief, precisely metered steps, each one exactly as painful as the last, a reminder of his chronically mysterious Achilles tendonitis and a tribute to all his other joints and muscles. Speaking of which, he wishes he had smoked some weed before he had set out.
Reaching the other side of the street, he steps up onto the curb, and does a quarter turn left. The wind is flowing, blowing, howling down this side street, the bitter gusts that suck the desire out of the hearts of all humans, he presses the crossing button, so he can proceed tangential.
He pauses, stopping to think about his journey thus far. He realizes he has no recall of the walk from his building to this point. In fact, he has exactly as much knowledge as you have yourself. In his sardonic, sarcastic, wanting to be iconoclastic way, he notes the seemingly fractal nature of life. Today is exactly similar to the rest of his life, which is also an exact semblance of the history of man. He can remember very little about the events of today (and all other days), and his memory is filled with large gaps, many of the other parts being confabulated. There are a few precise details about which he could be dogmatic about, such as the last time he checked his watch (and this too he begins to doubt as he realizes he thought he was absolutely sure of it).
NEVER TRUST THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH, a maxim by which everyone should live.
The light changed and he now went west. “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN” he yells, “GO WEST”. And then he laughs out loud, happy at being witness to this, his latest moment of genius.
The snow is waist high here, piled along, between, the road and the sidewalk. Packed hard as ice (obviously), unwelcoming harshness, sharp, brittle, cold, dead water, the exact negation of the perfect beauty of a fresh fall of snow on the gentle contour of the prairie, or the sharp, wind carved waves, complex flowing shapes, along the length of a snowdrift.
After several cross streets, he approaches the mall. Trying to figure out the state of mind of each and every stranger, and exhaustive and distressing task, he stumbles along the side walk, catches himself, only to start slipping again. He approaches the door and it opens automatically.
Bustling through the store, he approaches the counter and speaks to the pharmacy technician. He sees the pharmacist (a darting, furtive, knowing, smirking glance exchanged between the two of them). Exhausted from the walk and the cold, feeling ever so slightly sick, he sits down.
The pharmacist turns back towards the counter to the counter
Now the pharmacist puts down the bottle of ranitidine hydrochloride that he had been counting
Now the pharmacist closes the bottle
Then the pharmacist, a friendly, affable, Asian man turns towards him again
The pharmacist walks towards the fridge and opens the door.
He Shuffles a Few Things About and Graps A Closed Bag
Now, Wordlessly, We Both Turn, and Walk Into a Small Room Just To The Side Of The Pharmacy Counter. The Pharmacist Follows Me In, And We Both Take A Seat.
The pharmacist opens the bag, he hands me a small amber plastic, 60 cc bottle with a white cap on it and about twenty milliliters of orange (although through the plastic it looks yellow orange brown all at once). I deftly swoop the bottle off the table, making sure the coast is clear, the stars are aligned, my position has not been betrayed, and my heart is steal beating, but without a single thought, the cap comes of, the bottle tilts down, and the bitter, bitter orange juice leaps into my mouth and down my throat, disappearing in an instant as if it never existed.
…
…okay
… slow breath
…
Okay again… …another slow shallow breath.
I close my mouth, swallow, and put the bottle down. The bitter aftertaste lingers in my mouth and throat. It will be there for the next thirty minutes. I glance up at the pharmacist, who reappears in his chair, as he takes a sheet of paper and hands it to me. I sign in the appropriate place, and hand it back to him. He gives me his standard grin, and says “Well, okay, thank you Kevin, see you again next time”, as I get up and put my sweater and coat back on. I wipe a bead of perspiration off my forehead, say “yeah, I’ll see you next time”, as I step out the room. I continue walking, turning around to wave as I disappear down the drugstore aisle. I look at my phone again to check the time as I reach the exit and turn to wave again.
…
…smile
….
Look at the blue sky…
…
Laughing out loud just because…
…
The sun is still shining, and with the wind at my back it feels like it will be a nice day. The walk home is short, as it usually is. I get home, tromp up the flight of stairs, and whip open my apartment door. I don’t bother to lock it when I go out briefly in the morning. I take off my sweaters, toque, jacket, mitts, boots, and pants, standing there in my long underwear and tee shirt.
We all go into the kitchen, each and every one of us. I put some coffee on, and go sit at my computer to check my email. I put “Democracy Now” on to play, enjoy a warm, sweet, cheerfully, giddily milky cup of strong coffee, and have a great smoke. I have just enough time for a short nap before I have to get up again and get ready for school. Maybe I will have some nice dreams, I hope, my mind starting to drift as I fall asleep, listening to the news via the web.
