Release Date

[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

There’s a tumbler of water on the table between us. There’s that, and the wine glasses filled with shoddy convenience store boxed wine which is discreetly placed in a corner of the counter, refilled only when the other isn’t looking. It’s a charade of mock elegance that we both know is only for show, but is comforting in a very real way.

We talk about weather and protest and art and school and compare mental footnotes on physical anthropology and eastern theism and modernistic painting and drugs.......I lost my train of thought.

Occasionally there’s a puff of smoke from the mouths of the people sitting under the windowsill, soaking in the summer air and having their own convoluted conversations about equally pretentious proposition.

Still, there’s the quiet and the window smoke and the half depleted crystal tumbler which is really filled with foggy gin, instead of water, and the warm tobacco breeze that pushes through the screen and our mouths gyrate and spout without saying much and we’re happy with that. we’re content with that. We’re pleased.

And then one of us says something volatile, an intoxicated spurt of broken consciousness that is the equivalent to a bullet penetrating glass and the scene is broken into twisted fragments. The crystal tumbler is a test tube containing green poison.The tobacco breeze is warm cancer and the conversation we cling to is nothing but a floating ring in an ocean of dark water; the final refuge to a hopeless and uninhabitable albeit unsurvivable situation.

There’s nothing but the excuses and the averted eyes and harsh light from the kitchen overhead.  There’s nothing to sink into or hide in. There’s violent exposition.

And that’s it. No more pleasantries and no more charade. Just cracked light and a vase of bad tasting alcohol with snippets of shattered conversation touching our ears lightly.

I refill my glass and walk away.

[?????]

The face was frozen. The eyes stared dead ahead, and her mouth was contorted into a grin. Her breath was a comforting breeze on my face. I caressed her face with my palm, feeling the curves on her tender flesh. I worked my way up from the mock grin, to her cheek, and to her forehead. I returned her stare with a fierce gaze of my own.

Neither of us blinked. Neither of us broke contact. Neither of us cared anymore.

I placed my thumb on her eyelids, smearing her make up. Using my thumb and index finger, I kept her eyes open to adore them. I had to make them mine. I set the nail of my thumb in between her eyeball and eyelid and slowly, but tenderly, worked my thumb upwards. Muscle memory made the process much more efficient. Her face was still that tender flesh and that beautiful grin. That grin with the beautiful lipstick.

[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

But it was a mirage, a vision, a fantasy. Another gaudy charade.
Instead of a gratuitous grin, I was greeted with a scathing scowl and I was content with making awkwardly large sips of my faux-wine in the corner of the kitchen, almost apologetically,  while the callous conversation of the smoke breathers continued in full force.

I was caught in a crossroad, a terrible tangle of worrisome web and I wasn’t sure how I’d come out.

The door provided an opportunity. Of course, It’s the best way out, but I’d yet to realize it. Walking out of it, out of the noise and putrid pulse was an awakening. A slightly sobering realization of escape. And I walked and walked, thinking about things I might not think about until I found my own door.

[?????]

They came and greeted me. Their smiles were so comforting. Smiles that were just the right size. Obviously artificial, but still a comfort. Their voices lulled me into their rooms, through their doors. The smoke in here was different. Not the bland smoke from the infinite hall outside, but a warm enticing smoke. The smoke in here lifted one's spirits and gave them the strength to go on.

The smokes curls around your body until you can't be seen. When it's done with you it goes on to the next person and the next and the next and the next and the next, and the next. The smoke pushes the walls farther apart as it fills the room. What was once a small apartment becomes large dining hall. And that dining hall expands even further until it can't expand anymore (due to the laws of science). Then the ceiling rises and creates a staircase in it's wake.

Maybe this is your room. This could be your mansion.

[Boogus Epirus Aurelius]

And then, behind me, the door clicks shut, pulled closed by my curled right hand. An unconscious maneuver done so many times before.

My hand lingers over the peeling brass doorknob for a moment before I move on, away from the canned conversation that somehow bleeds through the walls. The former fleeting feelings of grandiose and majesty are just muddy memory now, filed in the nether archives of my swirling psyche, rendered unbalanced from the white wine.

I feel like I made a mistake somewhere. The floral wallpaper drips off the walls. The formerly white oven is a rusty shade of beige. The kitchen table is molded plastic with a deck of cards under one leg, for stability.

And then, without thought, I turn back around, slightly panicked, but resolved. The door swings open ahead of me and there’s sound again. There’s a vibration, an inaudible hum that swings through these halls.

I’m running now, stumbling into people, into walls, into doors. When I get there, the door’s propped open. The tumbler is still on the table, but it’s nearly empty, like the chairs sitting on either side of it.

The hum intensifies into a silent growl, pulsing and pushing.
Eyes scan and focus and refocus, but only on the extinguished lamps and empty chairs.

[?????]

The people are all standing now, staring at me. They seem like antibodies preparing to eliminate an unknown antigen. They do not understand anything deeper than that. They can not process what I am doing here; everything is clear cut, black and white, everything is simple in their eyes.

Their smiles are fading into their pudgy faces. Their snouts pick up a scent in the air that defines me. The eyes on one of look just like the eyes on another. The pitch black eyes gazing at you, examining you.