BOU-rgeoisie

        The highway was pitched in a blackening silence. Every few yards the dim flickering of the street lamps provided a pale yellow glow, then they would pass, plunging me back into the night. I took my hand off the steering wheel for a moment and patted the dashboard of my old and dented Jeep. “Everything is going to be all right” I whispered, “everything is going to be better now”. Moving my hand off the dashboard I reached over to the passenger seat and grabbed my cell phone, the screen lit up as I tilted my head down to check. April 6, 2007. 10:54 p.m. No Missed Calls. No New Messages. I turned it off and shoved the phone deep into my pocket. Only ten more minutes and I would be back in Chicago, sitting inside my apartment and out from under the drearily scattered road lights. Inhaling deeply I pushed the thoughts of coming pain out of my mind; I exhaled with a long sigh “just ten more minutes, everything will be better”.
       I still cannot remember where I parked that night, or entering through my buildings front door, those things were useless to me. Everything was useless, everything was nothing. Finding myself standing in the buildings third story hallway I slid the key into my apartment door and pushed it open to the studio which I called my home for these past five months. Having turned off the heater and all the lights before I had left, I walked back into my cold and dark cell. Between increasingly deeper gasps for air I heard my breath slowly sputter out two words, “Happy Birthday”. The room, this black and frigid coffin, became blurry. I repeated the words I had heard myself softly sigh, speaking them with a joy that could only come from someone who has forgotten what such a thing is supposed to feel like. “Happy Birthday”. Everything went out of focus. I stood there looking, reflecting in this murky rippling pool with its swirling shades of black.
        Wiping the tears out of my eyes I saw my way to the bathrooms medicine cabinet. “This is best for everyone” whispering once more to myself, “everything is going to be better now”. Pulling out the over sized bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol I made my way to the sofa, my apartments only true piece of  furniture. Sitting down, I placed the pill bottle next to an overfilled ashtray which sat on a small glass coffee table that I had inconveniently placed directly in front of the couch. With a deep fill of my lungs I sat up and brought myself to the edge of the cushion, one last time I knocked the jagged corner of the table into my knee. “Fuck”. I kicked the table and grabbed a half pack of stale Marlboro’s off of it, lighting one up I wiped at my eyes and sat there wondering if it would be my last.