The Overdose
I look up from the hole I’ve fallen into. I am being embraced on all sides by the overdose, a sinister hug that hides bad intentions. Suffocation by infinite cozy embraces.
I look up at the faces of my two best friends, Ozzy and June. Both look panicked—June on the verge of tears and Ozzy biting his nails and rocking in thirty-degree rotations. Despite their concerns, I feel fine. Peaceful, even. Quiet.
I’m stuck down here. Despite sitting upright, I am in my hole, barely able to tell which of my friends is talking.
“Should we take the tourniquet off?”
“Why?”
“If we leave it on, won’t the cut off circulation give him gangrene or something?”
“But if we take it off, won’t that make more of the heroin rush into his bloodstream?”
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
I try to look down at my arm—not out of concern for keeping my limb as much as a morbid curiosity as to whether the needle is still sticking out of it. All I see is myself falling deeper into the hole—Ozzy and June growing more distant, their visages slowly getting swallowed by darkness.
“But like what about that scene in Pulp Fiction?”
“That was a movie!”
“Yeah, but what do they inject into Uma Thurman’s heart?”
“It was adrenaline.”
“So we get some adrenaline.”
“Pharmacies don’t sell that shit. Besides, if we walk into a pharmacy, who do you think is going to help us? They’ll probably push a panic button or something.”
I laugh to myself, not that they can hear it. Neither of them had proposed bringing me to the hospital yet. I’m not angry, just amused at my idiot friends.
“Maybe we cut off his arm to keep the rest of the dope from hitting his bloodstream.”
Whoa. Whoa now. A sudden unease interrupts my euphoria. The dark walls around me grow spikes that taunt me with their proximity.
“He’s already overdosing-- it’s probably too late for that...”
The spikes recede around me by a few feet. I continue to float comfortably in my hole.
“...but maybe.”
The spikes return, closer than before. Two of them stab me in the chest and shoulder blade. My lungs fill with the darkness around me.
“Fuck, I don’t think he’s breathing.”
The spikes of darkness penetrating my lungs metastasize into infinite fractals that slowly cauterize each individual capillary. I sink deeper into the darkness of the hole. Ozzy and June grow visibly more distant, yet I can still hear them. Less clearly, but enough to make everything out.
“We should call an ambulance!”
“And lead them right here?”
“We’ve been squatting for six months, they can’t kick us out.”
“Don’t be naive—just because we’re supposed to be protected doesn’t mean we will be.”
“So we fight an eviction?”
“And live on the streets for five more years til the red E expires?”
I appreciate how sensible my friends are being, very out of character for them. It is my fault, after all. I mean, I guess it isn’t entirely my fault that this batch was cut with too much fentanyl. It was however my fault that I volunteered to test it out first. The need for a fix clouded my judgment. June is more of a fiend than me anyway, I should have let her volunteer first like I usually do.
“Well then how do we get him to a hospital? On the bus?”
“I mean why n--”
“It would take an hour, June!”
“We can’t just let him die here! Shouldn’t we be giving him CPR or something?”
“Do you know how to give CPR?”
I hear crying but it keeps blending into the ambient television static. While I know in my heart that the wailing is coming from June, nothing beyond instinct makes that clear.
“I don’t feel a heartbeat.”
Strange. I didn’t feel anyone check for that.
“Is he—you know?”
“I don’t know. He’s not cold yet.”
I certainly don’t feel dead yet. I hear more crying. Wailing. Screaming.
“Oh god! Oh god no, why?”
“I can’t tell if he’s breathing, don’t you have a mirror or something?”
I hear more cries. More screams.
“I don’t feel a pulse. That doesn’t mean he’s dead yet.”
“CPR!”
“Stop saying that like it will do something. They’re just letters if you don’t know what you’re doing! Fuck, he looks rough. Maybe he’s strong enough to sleep it off?”
The crying takes over at that point. For a while, it’s the only thing I can perceive from the darkness. Over time—maybe minutes, maybe hours--the sound becomes more comforting. A reminder of the love I do have in my life. I keep forgetting that the tears are for me. Every time I remember, a shameful pride takes hold.
I wait for what seems like hours. Any light that did remain in the darkness has long since faded. I no longer feel attached to my body. I no longer feel much of anything. Even the cries I hear getting more distant begin to confuse me. Should I feel proud of being loved? Should I feel bad about my friends’ pain? Should I try fighting to stay alive?
Eventually the cries become less all-consuming and I can’t tell if it’s because they’ve lessened or I’ve fallen deeper into my hole. Finally a voice comes back. The last thing I would hear.
“So I guess we just cut the dose in half and we should be fine, right?”
© 2022 by Robert de la Teja