Time Takes a Cigarette

[MurderWeasel]

You wake up, when so many other people don't.

You wake up, and it's 2015.

You wake up, and you're twenty-four years old, twenty-five in a month and a half.

You wake up, and most of your classmates, your friends, they're all still dead; they died almost seven years ago, died at seventeen and eighteen, for reasons nobody really understands even now.

You wake up, just like you wake up every day, same apartment that's just a bit messier than you'd like, same rumble of traffic outside the window, same things to do and people to talk to, only someone calls and lets you know it's happened again.

You wake up, and you take a shower and get dressed and brush your teeth and have some cereal for breakfast, and it's so normal it almost hurts, just like most normal things still almost hurt when you think about them.

You wake up, and the crying and screams and pain are a day further away, and that fear, that moment-by-moment living, that thought that there are no consequences anymore, that anything could ever occur without consequences, that's a day further away too.

You wake up alone, and you're alone after the call, and you're alone when you make other calls, when you cancel your plans for the foreseeable future.

You wake up, and some part of you is still seventeen, but it feels smaller every time you notice it, or maybe that's not right, maybe not smaller but harder to find, further away, quieter.

You wake up, and you are still angry, and you still hate, you still hate some of the same people you have hated for so long, and some new ones who you thought were kind of okay—who you'd actually thought showed that maybe others had made it through alright—well, some of them are still fine but you now hate some of them too, because they're letting go of who they used to be too, but not before wringing its neck in search of money or fame.

You wake up, and you can't find your glasses for a moment, and you finally figure out you knocked them off your nightstand in your sleep, and you wonder what you were dreaming about because you still almost never remember your dreams.

You wake up, and after you hear about what's happened you think for a little about what to do, consider calling one of the very small number of people who might understand and who you don't hate, but you decide not to.

You wake up, and you remember waking up almost three years ago in Seattle, the cold and fragrant sea air, the clarity or connection you'd failed to find standing across the street looking at a drab, three story, grey-and-brown building that meant nothing to you no matter how you wished it might be otherwise.

You wake up, and you change the message on your answering machine to say you're going to be out of contact for a little while but don't worry, everything's fine, and you shove some clothes into an old backpack and then spend longer picking some CDs because it's going to be a very long drive.

You wake up, and you can still remember the names, but some of the faces are gone now, seven years down the line, and some of the details are gone, and not only of the bad times, but everything before it all went wrong, days laughing in the cafetorium, math homework you pretended to struggle with, sneaking a bottle of beer at a party.

You wake up, and you make your way to your car because it feels right even if you know it probably isn't.

You wake up.