No Way Down

[Zevon†]

(B081 Gabriel Lee, start)

The first thing Gabriel felt was the strange, light breeze play against his face. It was too warm to be Seattle, and Gabriel opened his eyes in a dull, groggy curiosity to see where this mysterious wind came from.

If Gabriel hadn't quit marijuana years ago, he could have sworn he was high. Well, technically he was high. Gabriel must have been one-hundred feet in the air, and he immediately got vertigo when he looked down from his elevated position to the grey, cracked pavement below.

The second, and even stranger thing Gabriel noticed was that he was on a roller-coaster. It was a shitty, old, wooden roller-coaster, but a roller-coaster nonetheless. Gabriel looked around to see that he was sitting in one of the roller-coasters old cars that could seat two people uncomfortably together. But there wasn't a second person. Gabriel was alone, one-hundred feet in the air.

Shit.

Gabriel hands shook as he gripped the car's rusty safety bar.

Shit.

Gabriel froze. He couldn't act, couldn't think. He had never had a fear of hights as a kid, but this location was just too... weird. Why was he here? What was this place? Why wasn't this crappy roller coaster moving? Then he remembered.

Disneyland, ya, it's gotta be Disneyland. That was the field-trip, right? Disneyland with the other Seniors of Aurora High School.

But as Gabriel looked around the landscape that his elevated position provided him, he could see he wasn't in Disneyland. Disneyland was huge, with tons of people, and rides, and other cool stuff that Gabriel had actually been looking forward to. The amusement park below him was too small and too old. So where was he?

While Gabriel was desperately surveying the landscape, he saw the bag. The bag was the giveaway. It sat at the feet of the seat next to him beside his familiar blue duffle-bag like a fat, black, boa-constrictor, but with BO81 written in plain white letters. The bag reminded him. It reminded him of that asshole with the pony-tail Jim Greynolds and how he shot poor Mr. Davidge in the head and of Survival of the Fittest.

Survival of the Fittest.

Gabriel slumped over into the moldy cushions of his seat as tears started to role down his face and the memories flooded back into his mind. Survival of the Fittest.

Even if Gabriel got down from this shitty roller-coaster, he was gonna die.

Gabriel sat inside his rusty old roller-coaster car for over a hour. Even after all the tears had dried, and the panic had faded to a dull fear, he just sat there, not knowing the next step to take in this mad world he had seemed to enter.

He needed some Prozac.

Gabriel shuffled through his duffle bag until he found the small pill container which had his twenty multicolored Prozac pills inside. Gabriel's hands were shaking and sweaty as he tried to pull off the goddamn child lock. But as he was about to open it, Gabriel's lost his grip on the container and he watched as it fell through his hands, and bounced off the very edge of the roller-coaster car.

The plastic container shattered as it hit the pavement.

"Why me?" Gabriel whispered as he stared blankly at the broken pieces of plastic and scattered pills far below him. "Why me?" he repeated, slightly louder this time. "Why me?" he screamed. Why did he have to deal with all this shit. Why couldn't he be back home, chilling in his room, celebrating the end of school. Gabriel grabbed the safety rail of the roller-coaster car and started rocking the car back and forth violently. "Why me?" he screamed once again as fresh tears burned his eyes. He started kicking the inside of the roller-coaster car and smashing his fists against its hood. "Why me?" he yelled one last time.

Gabriel stopped. He was moving. Slowly, but he was moving. He wiped the tears from his eyes to see that his kicking must have broken the car's rusty breaks, and it was now moving slowly from the momentum of his shaking. He didn't have time to bail from the roller-coaster car before it plummeted down a massive drop-off.

Gabriel's teeth clattered together as his car flew violently down the track. All he could do was hold on for dear life as the car gained momentum and hurled toward one of the roller-coaster's towering loop-de-loops. As the car began its ascent up the loop-de-loop, Gabriel saw his bags fall past him towards the ground at the terrifying moment the car was upside-down. As Gabriel's car careened out of the loop-de-loop, he saw in wide eyed terror that there was another abandoned roller-coaster car on the track, which his car was fast approaching. His only choice was to jump, or the impact would send him flying forward to meet his maker face first.

Gabriel felt the wind rush past his ear for a second as he jumped from the roller-coaster car. Then he felt the impact. Gabriel landed in a bush on his back and he felt the air flee from his lungs as the impact knocked the wind out of him. He laid in the bush for a full minute, than sat straight up, taking in deep, desperate breaths. He had heard the two roller-coaster cars crash together while he was falling, and he looked up about twenty feet to see that the car he had been in only a minute ago was completely totaled, the front half torn to pieces. Gabriel slowly stood up, checking his body for wounds or breakage.

Wow. He was fine. For the first time since he had woken up, Gabriel felt lucky.

He shuffled towards where his pill container had shattered.

He was gonna get his Prozac.

(Gabriel Lee continues in Rather be a Rat than a Lion)