Just Another Day

The familiar raspy voice traveled through my ears and into the deepened crevices of my mind, nuzzling inside. It didn’t want to leave and I couldn’t make it do so. All I could was sit and listen, accept what was being said to me. Talking down to me again, like a child who got into the flour pot, no surprise there.

“Go the fuck away.” I thought to myself. Of course, he spoke back and told me that I needed him to be who I was. His defiant ways were beginning to prove to be too much for me. 

His coarse tone again infiltrated my thoughts, damning me from progressing forward. I sat in the smooth black recliner and kicked my feet up on the ottoman that laid inches from me.

“Deep down I know there’s a part of you that enjoys this. You could break away from me, my chains, my stranglehold… but you choose not to. Now tell me what this says about you?”

“It says nothing, nothing of substance. Every person who has ever breathed has had to deal with you and I’m just about sick of it. One of these day I’m gonna…”

He cut me off before I could finish.

“You’re gonna what? You can’t do shit, Matt. You can’t disrupt this balance. You are nothing without me. Nothing! What you fail to realize is that you need me to be you.”

“Ok, maybe you’re right. Here’s you fail to realize. Without me, there’s no you.”

“That’s not true at all,” he quipped back. “You could keel over and die where you sit and I’d be a-ok. I don’t need you, Matthew. I already control millions upon millions of others, so you tell me why I need you again?”

I motioned for the glass of red wine that rested on the table nearby. As I lifted it and put the Riedel glass to my lips and swished around the Cabernet, I sunk into the chair and took a deep breath. In an act of defiance, I wound up and threw the glass at my forty-six inch television set. Both shattered upon impact, which led him to let out a laugh that could best be described as bone-chilling. This is what he wanted.  

“What are you trying to prove, Matthew? You can’t hurt me. I am you.”

“You’re not me! You may live here but you are not me in any way. I deal with your shit because I have to, I don’t have a fucking choice. You don’t control me, you sick fuck.”

“But I do. Look at what I just made you do. Can’t watch a Yankee game with a shattered TV screen, can ya? Better get to writing; it’s all you have now.”

“Fuck you.”  I stepped out of the living room and into the kitchen where I grabbed the jug of off brand orange juice. Opening the cupboard, I stretched my arm until I felt the plastic cap of the cheap vodka along my fingertips. I nudged it downwards and caught it in mid-air, clasping it between my abdomen and left arm. He made his presence felt by speaking up again.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Drowning in the bottle again, and you have the nerve to wonder why I’m here? I’m a byproduct of you, how can’t you see this?”

I slouched down beside the cupboard, dropping to the floor with the bottle in my hand. I felt defeated. He was going to win this round. I twisted the cap off and threw it across the kitchen with no regard for where it may end up.  I watched it skip across the floor and against the recycling bin that sat empty in the hallway.

“Do it, you know you want to. Give in, drink. You deserve it. Look at what you’ve been through.” He was being damn persuasive, and he knew the gospel he spoke was undeniable. I fed into it and took a shot before standing up and heading to the bathroom.

He knew what I was planning to do and pleaded with me not to. The bottle of 500 milligram hydrocodone stared at me from the medicine cabinet below the sink.

“Please don’t. Don’t do this. You were right, I was wrong. I need you! Don’t do this!”

It was obvious to him that I had the upper hand now. I pressed down and spun the top off of the bottle and dumped the contents into my palm. While thinking it all through, I mustered up the courage to stand to my feet and look him in the eyes.

I lifted my head in his direction but paused. I took a deep breath and swallowed three pills, sending a warning shot that he would not soon forget. I had seven more resting in my hand and would not hesitate to down the rest if he started his shit again. I walked over to the sink with my shoulders slouching low. I twisted the faucet on and watched the stream of water circle about the ceramic bowl and down the drain.

“Look at me. Look at me now, god damnit! You can’t do this to me!”

I finally looked up and stared back, burning a hole in the eyes that gazed back. His hazel eyes stared back and the reflection was my own.