Chapter 1

1

I wake abruptly.

I may look disheveled and half-asleep, lost in a hazy realm between dream and day, but the truth of the matter is completely opposite. The brain is awake even before I am, contouring thoughts and dreaming of fiction before I rise from slumber. The processing of images, colors, smells and sounds ignite in my mind with the rising of the sun. My head is cleared of the previous day's concerns and what flows from my mind's eye can only be attributed as art. I am the sun. Slowly my consciousness rises throughout the day, only to hit its apex, where my mind begins to dull with the mundaity of life. Mundaity...did I make that word up?

Like Shakespeare, am I making up words that will one day be added to the dictionary? Doubtful. The English language is already overpopulated with homeless words and impoverished phrases. So as my mind continues to wake, I'll stick to those middle class words that everyone uses to get their collective points across. Those words that drive their cars to work each morning to simply stare off into space, collecting pensions, occupying our atmosphere. I am no better than these words, but I digress.

I can't remember how I woke today. I can assume the sun rose, warming my body until the sweat from my brow collected in the sockets of my eyes, but the very first thing I remember is this. Standing on the corner of this street. What is it? 5th? 5th and Spruce, I believe. Confusion sets in. How did I get to 5th and Spruce anyway?

Try to remember last night Richard. Just to put things into perspective. Were you drunk again? Most definitely. Yet, can you really be sure? Is it only because you've been self medicating so much recently, trying to keep from thinking, rationalizing, analyzing your meager existence, that you believe you were drunk again? Can you actually remember placing the bottle to your lips?

No. It's hazy, yet completely unlike this morning, because at least you can remember some things. You were alone, drifting along in that blue chair of yours that's been relegated to the corner of your study. You were staring at the broken clock on the wall, the one you opened fire on in a drunken, rageful evening last March. You put a bullet into the midnight hour. The clock whimpered and proceeded to die, headed into that abyss in which you're more than ready to go.

Look around these desolate streets. Someone must have seen you walk here. Here, to the corner of 5th and Spruce. A pile of leaves, a discarded bag of Cheetoes, cigarette butts, some graffiti on the wall of the corner high rise. People have been here, but not for some time. I woke with the sun while others went to bed with it. No one is around to answer my call:

"How did I get here?"