I wake up. Light is beginning to flow through the open window, a curling iron with my fingers smooshed inside of it lies next to me. Where my head should be, near the pillows, a pill bottle lays open with its contents strewn around it. My vision is blurry but I am engulfed in a wonderful, serene feeling. Like I am finally at peace. My still sleepy thoughts were “If this is death, kill me now”. But then my mind began to awake itself and truly get a bearing on my surroundings. The alarm clock that was always beside the bed, where I am sure a nightstand once stood, was laying on the floor silently yelling to me that my sister would be home in minutes. S***. I sat up and pulled my fingers from in between the lips of the curling iron; it was plugged in but luckily not on. I reached for my pillow and realized how little control over my body I had. Slowly, with deliberate motions, I tried to pick up the little red pills. One, two, three...eight pills. I didn't dwell on it too long but I was sure that the container had twenty six when the doctor prescribed it yesterday. I moved, like a snake that didn't know how to control its tail, across the bed hoping to God that when my feet reached the floor they would remember how to hold me up. Realizing that there was a slight burning sensation coming from my fingers, I pulled my hands front and center to my face so I could inspect them. Oh God. The curling iron had been on; the fingers on my right hand were red and bulging. They looked as if someone had ran over them with a bulldozer. Staring at my seared skin, all I could think of was how lucky I was to be too doped up to feel it. I tried walking but before I reached the door I gave up and fell to my knees. Attempting to make it to the bathroom, I crawled down the hallway and tried to turn the knob on the bathroom door. But my hand was not cooperating and my fingers were too mutilated to be of much help. I finally twisted the knob open with the crook of my arm. I crawled to the shower and flopped my self into the tub. I managed to turn the water on by using my teeth to move the handle and I laid in the tub with the water, not sure wether it was burning hot or freezing cold, rushing over my body. From the bathroom I heard the front door open. Great. She was back. With everything inside me, I willed myself to get up and stand under the faucet of water. I had decided that the water was in the scorching hot region based on how red my skin was. In my head I yelled at myself, trying to get my body to move around and remember how to hold my hands steady enough to be of any use. I didn't realize, until my sister started screaming my name and slammed open the bathroom door, that I had been yelling at myself outside my head too. Without thinking how the face to face encounter might go, I managed to get myself out of the shower and stand in front of her without falling to the floor. She stared me up and down and then finally asked me if everything was okay. I tried to say I was fine but nothing came out, so I shook my head. Probably not too convincingly being as my neck was apparently under the same command that my arms were and that was to ignore everything I told them to do. My sister asked me how the party was and I stared at her blankly. Party? Had I gone to a party last night? That was the point where I realized that my memory was completely wiped clean of everything that happened the night before. “Mmm” I replied, my best attempt at a response in the affirmative.
“Oh, well, Good. Do you want some soup?”
“Mmm” I said, again in the affirmative.
She gave me one last once over, shook her head and walked away. Luckily she closed the door. I realized her odd stares and at first just figured I looked as out of it as I felt and she could tell. But then I looked down at myself and wanted to laugh. She probably thought I was crazy. I was soaked, obviously just having gotten out of the shower, but I was also fully dressed.