wow, i feel really nervous about posting this...
i'm a songwriter and this is my first story attempt.I have a long story to tell, but figured a three part short would serve me best for starters.
I'm most interested in structure and voice critique, although there's not much voice in this first chapter! the second will have alot of dialogue, but i want feedback before i start to write it...please & thnx!
also, please tell me what questions and curiosities arrise as u read that i haven't addressed, if applicable. anddon't be afraid to tell me to stick to music! I know there's alot of problems but i wanna know if im on th right track or scrap it and try again?
this is based on true and tragic events...names changed...And i've been clean for seven months, btw!
Minus Human - By C.R. Knight
chapter one.one
Teardrops & Duct Tape
October 1, 2011 - 2:30AM
Raymond stands at a crossroad of life and death.
Death tempts him in cunning whispers. While life offers nothing for his haunted heart that hates to beat.
Ray’s spoon is loaded as his lighter's flames lick & motivate the spoon’s well to boil. Acidic lemon juice breaks down the 16 milligram fentanyl pain patch & prepares it to be "scrubbed" in the spoon.
By doing so, the opiod drug is transferred from patch to liquid. After the drug is drawn into the syringe with a ripped cigarette filter, Ray repeats the process with an additional 16 milligram patch.
Now, lay two syringes and thirty-two milligrams of a crawling chaos that overwhelms intensely. The kind of euphoria only gifted by an opiate high. Enough drug to get four,
opiate-tolerant, addicts high. Enough drug to kill at least two healthy men. Enough drug, if injected back to back, to kill Ray.
Ray is his is ill-Father’s care-giver and if he could have gotten more patches from him, he’d be cooking another one.
Instead, Ray's secured a deadly insurance; twenty, father-stolen, blue hued,
egg-shaped Xanax lay scattered amidst the flame-blackened spoon, patch wrappers, ripped filter & death-begging needles. They will help ensure he doesn’t wake up while the fentanyl overtakes him.
Ray doesn’t buy drugs on the street. His Father, Jim, is what drug counselors call an enabler.
Seven years ago, his father and mother, Kay,- long before she died of pancreatic cancer- fell on hard times and took lesson from the example of many unfortunates in their small town in Michigan. Pain pills sell for various high prices and are an easy, lucrative albeit illegal source of supplemental income.
Ray began to sell his father’s pills - unknown to Kay, at first - to pay their bills and it wasn’t long before Ray began using. After he became addicted, his father felt an immense guilt for exposing his then 18 year old son to drugs. Forever after, Jim steadily supplied his son’s habit out of guilt and misguided love - never wanting his son to bear the hell of opiate withdrawal.
Seven years later, after a prison sentence for possession and relapse, his mind is supremely clouded from opiates & grief. His addiction is advanced and sobriety to him is an impossibility. Remaining an addict is also an impossibility for him. He's on parole, so drug testing is often. Therefore, parole violation is certain. He feels he needs prison like he needs another hole in his arm. Which he doesn't want, believe it or not. He only, now, uses to forget...everything. Simply waking up is all the reason he needs to use & use & use until he wakes up again.
And that brings us, lately, dear readers, to Leah. Partner of eight years and mother to their only child. Her recent death being the root of his guilt, remorse & grief. This leaves Ray , in his obfuscated reasoning, preparing suicide. All the while forcing thoughts of their daughter, Eleanor, to the farthest abyss in his mind; by telling himself that he’s doing their three-year old a favor. Leaving only Elle’s mother’s grandparents to care for her.
Heavy tears begin to flow, as Ray's pulse quickens. The tears fall and pelt the roll of duct tape being wrestled in his hands. Ray's fingers argue for purchase on the tapes end. All the while wondering how tightly he will be able to wrap the grey tape around his chest.
He wants to make it hard to breathe when the fentanyl & alprazolam begin to take him. Another deadly insurance.
Ray’s thoughts are striking like lightning. Sporadic & fleeting. See-saw thoughts of Leah & Elle plague h. is existence. Those cherished memories of meeting Leah for the first time, making love to Leah, Elle’s birth, her first steps & words, first birthday, all of the plans they had for their future,, and on, and on. Relentless. Breeding only more hopeless anguish.
Then come the bad memories. Her depression from motherhood. Leah beginning to use occasionally with him. Her becoming addicted. The drug-fueled arguing. Leaving Leah and Elle to go to prison, Her getting clean and their relapse, five months after his release.
Which brought, just days later, a parole violation resulting in being jailed. And her death, ten hours after he was arrested, by a fentanyl overdose. It was seven months & eight parole violations ago, today.
"Mother****er!" in a stabbing utterance as Ray, frustratingly, battles tear drops & duct tape.
Purchase attained, Ray removes his t-shirt. Sleave stains of blood from yesterday’s “escape" scream where hygiene rates for him, these days.
He begins to peel apart the shopworn, sticky, roll. From left to right, he begins to wrap his upper rib-cage above his nipples. Feeding the roll from hand to hand behind his back and around again.
He makes several passes. Forcing his addiction-depleted strength to make the wrap as tight as possible. Leaving him just enough lung-swell to get the air needed to inject himself and fall asleep...forever.
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