Logan was with his girlfriend the first time he tried the opiate known as Percocet. “Sublingual infuse,” she had said, “put it under your tongue.” Her fingers had run themselves lightly through his lanky black hair, pushing it even farther down the path towards total disarray. Shrugging, Logan had done as she said, his dark green eyes closing as he lowered his tongue over the ten-milligram pill. A moment passed. He opened his eyes, their color startling against the pallor of his face and the dark circles forming about them. He hadn’t felt any spectacular sensation, no sudden rush of nirvana, or any other effect that he’d imagined. “Sandra?” he’d begun inquisitively, but she silenced him by putting one slender finger to his lips. They had waited, with the wail of the city droning in the background.
Finally, Logan had felt a tingling flush in his fingers. It spread rapidly, and soon he felt like he was connected to his body in only the loosest way. There was, he imagined, a thin, golden thread that seemed to tie his ethereal mind to the ephemeral, cumbersome body which he felt so little. Trying to focus his eyes on something other than the white brightness that seemed to slowly coat his vision, Logan had heard Sandra speaking to him, but couldn’t discern her words. Instead, he fancied quite vividly that he heard a host of other voices, beckoning him. “I think I need to lie down,” he had mumbled, barely containing a sudden wave of nausea that twisted through the peace that had blanketed him.
One-hundred-twenty miligrams of a generic-brand opiate rested in a perfect pile of pale dust before Logan. Sighing, he finished his fifth cigarette of the morning, inhaling the bitter-sweet scent of clove as he pursed his lips and gave a pensive sigh, blowing grey wraiths over the desk. Logan fancied that the smoke wound its way out of the open window to mingle with the rain. He placed the smoldering butt of his cigarette in a well-built pile near the white cup that continually held a supply of lukewarm black coffee. One ringed finger on his right hand tapped idly.
Seven weeks later, Logan was railing 80-milligram doses of Percocet. As he lay down to avoid the ever-decreasing nausea that seemed to accompany his intoxications, Logan prepared to force image and shape into the shining whiteness that threatened him. (He had developed a fear of simply drifting off while using any narcotic: the white void terrified him. He was fascinated by the faint voices that seemed to reach to him, but he could not help but feel a terrible fear of their source. The third time he had used Percocet, he had deliberately set himself into a place of infinite black, and had been equally petrified. If the whiteness had seemed ominous, this pitch abyss was triply so. He had jolted out of the half-dream like state screaming, only to throw up the very narcotics that lead him to the dark Kingdom.)
Dimly, the young man recalled what Sandra had described to him as the Kingdom. He had understood what she said- the glory that he felt almost overpowering, and the attraction. The lure. However, he did not find the Kingdom in this bright haze. Rather, he caught glimpses of it in a spark of electricity, in arcane formations of smoke, in the lights reflecting off of broken windows in the back alleys of New York. Pushing these thoughts aside, he desperately threw images into the whiteness, as he noticed his body slipping away again. Floating into white, he saw bubbles of blue and green shimmering joyfully in the stark void, buoying him, surrounding him. The part of Logan that was still corporeal smiled while the incorporeal brushed at the iridescent bubbles all about him.
Thunder rumbled menacingly outside of Logan’s window, breaking his reverie. As lightning flashed before his eyes, touching down on some rusting tenement in the distance, Logan gasped. The Kingdom, ever before his eyes, seemed so palpable in moments such as this that he felt that a single step would carry him through its gates.
As the lighting – and the striking nearness of the Kingdom – faded, Logan redirected his attention to a string of creamy pearls that lay in a careless heap in one corner of his desk . Blankly staring at them, he downed most of his cup of coffee.
Weeks later, after taking a light dosage of Percocet, Logan slipped away from Sandra in the late afternoon and went for a walk through the alleyways near his rundown apartment. His use of the narcotic was necessary for an experiment he wished to perform. Logan attempted to project his own images onto reality, much as he had learned to project into the frightening void of the opium abyss. As he walked, the altogether ugly and unremarkable city became a mural of decadence, a marvel in spoiling grandeur. Monolithic buildings stretched narrowly up from the mud and muck that was the city floor. Most windows stood empty of glass, some covered by haphazardly-nailed boards, while ivy and graffiti seemed to grow together on weathered brick walls. Logan noticed lotus blossoms that dotted the mud of the alleyways where he walked. Overhead were the gaping crowns of unfinished buildings and the solemn heads of light-posts and telephone poles. Wire stretched from pole to pole, humming with power. Reverberating in that hum, Logan felt, was the Kingdom. I can see it, he thought desperately. I’m so close.
After another moment of mindless staring, Logan began carefully scraping the poudre blanche into even piles. This achieved, after painstaking minutes, he neatly filled clear gelatin caps with the oxycodone. He found concentration difficult: the dismal alley scene through his window kept dragging at his eyes and attention.
Eventually, Logan gave up and stared out his window at the ancient slums. The clusters of apartments and tenements appeared dull through the dank rain that dropped sluggishly to the ground. Logan sighed. So much potential beauty in the world, and so many ugly realities. He sipped, enjoying the harsh grating of a new brew coffee against his dry mouth, savoring the flavor and appreciating the caffeine. Blowing out a heavy breath, Logan leaned further forward over his desk, peering out of the window at the streets below.
The sewer-entries were full, clustered with mud and debris. Oil and filth from the city gave the street an eerie raven sheen in the rain. Atop of the glistening rainbow film on the streets he could see a reflection of the dark clouds above. Beautiful, he thought. This is how it ought to be. Another sip of coffee. He could feel the opiate working its way through his system. The rain drops that collected on the window sill reflected the outside lights in glistening shades of blue and green. Logan stared at them with fascination, seeing the whole world colored through their translucence. Lavender and musk incense, glowing dimly in the corner of his desk, sent strange phantasms dancing across the air. Logan watched their movements, following the wisps with his inner eye as they faded into the dank air.
Every day became another step on the road to the Kingdom, each increasing dosage allowing him just a little more of a glimpse. Even Sandra, at first so eager to push him to pursuit of the Kingdom, worried for him, with his persistent search for the ultimate key. Eventually, he began disregarding her cautions and warnings, turning his back to his love in favor of the Kingdom. High dose after high dose followed in quick succession- abnormally close together and in increasing volumes. Logan’s eyes, already surrounded by dark circles, took on a dull, glazed look in his sunken sockets ringed with bruises. Grapefruits replaced all other food in his diet, and his frame thinned out, joints and bones bulging under fragile skin. His shirts barely clung to his frame, leering open between buttons to reveal dull skin and a fragile chest. Logan, however, did not notice the change, but pursued life with his normal quietly optimistic attitude. And all the more, he pursued the Kingdom.
“Nothing for it,” Logan murmured to himself, licking cracked lips with a dry tongue. He automatically swallowed the newly prepared capsules, his mind drifting out the windowsill, along the whistling breeze, through the clattering leaves. Time passed, and his eyes strove for hints of the Kingdom. The sound of children screaming and laughing came to him just as the first effects of his dose washed over his body. As the voices of the children faded, they were replaced by a chorus of encouraging cries. Reeling, nauseous, back from his desk, Logan stared blankly at the whiteness that pounded over him. As soon as he started to force images into the vast nothing, however, he saw the Kingdom; clearer than ever before. Slumping forward, Logan drifted into unconsciousness.
When his eyes opened, Logan knew he was far from the reality of the slums – far from the window and the alley scene where he’s last been aware. It was not a feeling brought on by any specific wakefulness, just the innate knowledge that such surroundings couldn’t exist. He stood, so far as he could tell, in a dimly lit alleyway. The broken cobblestone that formed its floor was riotous with grass and lavender blossoms. In the dusk, wrought-iron light posts provided a golden tinge to the scene. Next to him, an ancient brick house with battened-down windows stood, impressive in its monolithic silence. Mist, an anomaly in New York (although Logan had no idea where he was) shrouded the end of the alley. Patches of fences, put up by the paranoid to protect their worthless lot, created an uneven border in parts of the narrow lane. Logan began walking. Inspecting the growth between the cobblestones, he noticed a thin, uneven line of lotus blossoms that seemed to stagger through the middle of the alley. All about them small white flowers, shaped and scattered much like a spilled supply, gave contrast to the black muck of the cobblestones. Above, aged power lines seemed to hum with energy. Taking note of the battered houses all about him, Logan kept walking. The lane seemed to find no end.
The door to the three-room flat closed with a heavy thud, pushed into place by Sandra’s foot. Calling for Logan, the young woman set a bag of groceries on the nearest counter. It had been, she guessed, some weeks since Logan had eaten properly. “Logan?” she called again, walking into the room that served as a bathroom and closet. Finding it empty, Sandra turned into the third room. Seeing his silhouette against the window, Sandra walked gently over to him. She shook his shoulder, thinking him to be asleep. “Logan?”
Passing under a lamp-post, Logan suddenly felt the distinct sensation of being called, of someone pulling on his shirt tails. Idly, he glanced about behind him: no one. He began walking briskly along his way. Four houses off, he thought he saw an end to the alley-way, a door.
When Logan gave no response to the hand upon his shoulder, Sandra shook him more roughly, calling his name again. Her hip banged into the desk, and Sandra gave a start as Logan’s coffee cup spiraled off the desk, followed quickly by a string of creamy white pearls. Falling against the chipped tile floor, the coffee cup split upon one side, and the pearls fell into a standing pool of coffee. She stared as the pearls disappeared, their white swallowed by the black coffee.
“It’s the Kingdom, you know,” Logan called over his shoulder, informing whoever kept trying to stop him. “Can’t you see it? Can’t you feel it?” He marched forward, eyes fixed on the shadows that pulled ever nearer.
Sandra stopped trying to wake Logan. Instead, she ran out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her . She didn’t run for help, didn’t call out- she just ran. “Goodbye Logan,” she sobbed between gasping breaths. “Why you?” Sandra had seen too many victims of overdose before, too many to hope for Logan.
The gate that had caught Logan’s eye from far off now stood before him, solid and shining. It seemed, to Logan, to be cut out of a bright mirror. Words with an oil-like sheen gleamed sullenly at him, through the twilight.
The hall of Hades, lit by flickering torchlight
The netherworld is gathered in the glare
Across the River Styx, out of the lamplight;
The sign of Eth is rising in the air.
Reaching out a hand, Logan stroked the lustrous handle with a trembling finger. The voices that rushed through opiate delirium rose in chorus, the static hum of power wires throbbing in his ears. Astonished, Logan gasped as the doors melted under his touch, draining into the battered cobblestones. His eyes rose, and Logan smiled. He stepped forward, out of the alley.
Posted by briseis 
Posted by briseis 
Posted by briseis 
