Drone: Chapter Four (prelude)

      There are places I go, places I can barely remember now, but for some moments.  Quick flashes that make me remember that they were real.  That things really happened.  A last cigarette smoked in a place that has no name except for what we called it.  The party where the deck collapsed and our lives changed, but not really.  The party where we drank to much and threw up the stale pizza we had eaten at the dinning hall.  The party where we first met where there were neon lights and ecstasy, and cocaine, and Bacardi, and a kid who was drinking from a boot.  The party we left to find another party.  The room we slept in so many nights when the nights were cold and there was no one else.
      We did everything so fast just so we could talk about it the next day.  Hungover again and afraid to mention what we knew we had said last night in the heat of the moment.  That was the life we lived and we lived it well for a while not realizing that we would only look back on it with a blurring remembrance.
      I imagine a life sometimes where I stayed there with you.  Where I published a book about it all and made money and graduated and moved to Los Angeles and you came with me.  And we lived for a while doing the same things we did in college, and we were happy.
But soon the nights merged together like they had before, like lights on that dark highway fused in the reflection of the headlights.  The life we had desired was gone just like those nights we couldn't remember. Time disappeared, and on that couch where it all started I can see myself.  Outside my body.  Maybe I'm drunk or maybe I'm dreaming, either way the only explanation is that this is just another tragedy.  Another life that could never be.  Another dream wasted on you.  And then I'm awake.  I forget that I was dreaming, and for a moment it seems real.  For a moment I am back in that bed starring at the ceiling as the blue shades of morning light stream in the window behind me.  The moment when I could still feel you next to me, breathing.  Then it is gone, and I am back in this place trying to remember how I got here.  Trying to remember what happened last night.  Trying to remember all those nights, and realizing that sleep will be the only remedy.

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