I stared at him and he stared back at me. This was the first time I had ever come face to face with a killer. He had such cold eyes and stared straight down into me. Standing there frozen and unable to move, I began to think of what he was feeling. Maybe he and I weren't so different.
After all, I was about to kill him, so what made me any better? There was nothing at all that separated who we were. I knew it, and so did he. It was only proper that we die together like this. I put the gun to his head, and he pressed his to mine, as we stood shaking, awaiting the terror of the bang.
My sense of time had completely left me, but it felt like a few days ago I should've known this is how it would end. If it weren't for blacking out, I defiantly would've known a lot sooner.
The California sun shone into my eyes one morning after one of my more eventful blackouts. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I rolled over on the floor. “Oh,” I thought as I tried to think straight, “Where in the hell am I?”
This wasn't the first time had I woken up soaked in a puddle of my own vomit, and it wouldn't be the last either. Standing up, I realized I had simply passed out in the hotel room my wife and I were staying in, even though my wife, Marilyn, was no where to be found.
After realizing that most of her things were gone, I came to the conclusion that she had finally ditched out on me. She always threatened me that she would, especially when I would drag her along on a long chase like this one, but I never thought she would actually go through with it.
I made my way over to the sink in the bathroom to wash my face and hands off. The concoction of yesterday's lunch, stomach acid, and blood that made up my vomit rolled right off with a splash of hot water.
Waking up in the hotel room was at least a nice surprise, rather than just in the gutter like usual. I had taken such a wild trip on Edge and whatever else I could find last night, that nothing would've surprised me though.
The first time I had ever heard of the miracle drug named Edge was when a police officer came on to give us a motivation speech when I was in the 7th grade to try and scare us away from it. For me, it did the exact opposite.
He told us that it even though it had only recently started to spread, it was the single most dangerous elicit drug to ever hit the streets. This enticed me more than anything else and after being diagnosed with chronic depression in my college years, I was willing to take anything to numb the pain. Even if it meant tossing a few of the black horse pills named “Edge” down my throat every chance I got.
I can still remember what the cop had said to us. “Edge,” he began, “also known as Score, Cleave, Hew, and Slash, is the most addictive substance known to man. Not only after one experience is it nearly impossible for the average person to quit, the high you experience can also occur for sometimes up to three weeks straight. It may come to a point when the user is so obliterated from usage that they may forget what being sober really feels like.”
I haven't spent more than a day since my sophomore year in college without it and I could give you plenty of stories telling you just how true that statement really is. Out of all those stories though, none of them could possibly be comparable to what I am about to tell you.
The cop continued on saying, “Sometimes nothing can go wrong with the drug, but most frequent users experience side effects. The side effects can include anything from hallucinations, dope trips, and memory loss, to blurred vision, chills, bleeding orifices, and sharp chest pain. Although the drug may arouse astounding ecstatic and orgasmic feelings, the gravity and likelihood of harm far outweighs the utility of the participation in its recreational use,”
He finished his speech with a simple, “Please consider this a serious warning and avoid any contact with this drug before you fall victim to what is arguably the worst epidemic to ever spread globally in the history of mankind.” I should've listened. To this day, that's my biggest regret.
Now in an empty hotel room on a lonely California street is where the drug and my rough job had taken me. This was no vacation though; it was strictly a business trip.
