Z.

I'm driving to work this morning and suddenly I'm transported to an unexpected scenario: I wake up in a strange place with my entire head wrapped up in a gigantic ball of duct tape. No eyeholes, just two narrow tubes to my nostrils poking out through the duct tape ball around my head so I can breathe.  Everything is dark, and in my panicked scramble to sit up and search blindly for something—anything around me that I can use to pull the thousands of layers of duct tape off of my head—I'm confounded by my surroundings. Using only my sense of touch—the outside world a dull hum and utterly dark to my tape-entombed senses—nothing I touch conjures any sense of familiarity about where I am. What happened to me , I wonder, my heart pounding, the tubes stuck to my nostrils billowing like furnaces as I suck little streams of acrid air from the outside world into my lungs.  Who has done this to me?  Why?  Where am I and how can I escape?  I scour blindly, motivated by fea...

Beyond sunset. The sun has quit the sky. Night stands upon the edge of fullness. I push myself along upon my belly. Down the rigid concrete sidewalk. Built over a rippling, meandering creek below. My body grinds against the hard cement. Scraping over the paved path. To look over the edge. And peer down at the whispering eddies of water beneath. Flowing around and over stones. I gaze upon the waters.  The dark reflection of dying light on its surface. Shadows curl around edges of rock. My mind perceives the shape of Her face. Dark eyes. Flowing hair. Regal beauty. Has it been constructed this way by design? No.  It is only an accident of the natural world. The river water and the night sky's reflection. Should look like You. "For all of time, the struggle to resist death has only been: Vanity." Pull back from the edge of the sidewalk. Push myself further along, with my feet. On my stomach. Carefully up concrete steps. Slowly down paved ramps. The sound of trickling rivulet...

In no particular order: STONER MEMORY 1: "FUCK YOU, Z!"  In the absolute depths of stoned bewilderment.  My two friends, laughing with each other, turn to me suddenly and begin telling me, repeatedly, emphatically, to go fuck myself. AFI's The Art of Drowning "Yeah, you know what? You should go fuck yourself!"  "Yeah, Z, fuck you. Seriously, fuck you."  I don't remember saying anything. In fact, I barely ever manage to say a single word when I'm this far gone. Is that why they're suddenly so hostile?  Does my stoned silence come off as rudeness?  "Seriously, go fuck yourself. I mean it." "Z. I'm telling you. Fuck you, dude. Seriously. Fuck you." They are so insistent, and focusing on me so singularly during this time, that the only thing I can think to do is get up and leave. They pursue me. Is it a joke? In my state, I can't tell. But I struggle to think of what a measured response might be. "Where are you ...