For Bohankeeton:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/user/blog/bohankeeton/view=645410

-----------------------------------------

I sit amidst the wisps of smoke curling around my fingers and passing through my nostrils.

Before long, I find my mind wandering back to that night when my brother sat next to me in this very place.

Inhale......

------------

The Jack Daniels was going to go down easy before the concert, and we were going to top it all off with a good doobie as our nightcap. Two shots, and keep 'em coming. It was busy that night, and the bartender could barely keep his ears open long enough to take my order before another was barked his way.

I'm not sure if he heard me. Stupid kid. Why in the hell would management put some college dropout behind the bar alone on the night that ZZ Top is going to be in town? Can't even take a fucking drink order.....

I admit, I felt more irritated than I should have. It was strange, really.... I hadn't smoked anything beforehand, yet everything just felt so vivid.

Call me crazy, but have you ever had those moments where time for you seems to slow? It's not very noticeable at first, but you can feel it in the air. The hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, and you can feel the electricity around you..... this sinister sense of urgency that seems so out of place.

Take it all in.

I see a couple laughing across from each other, not realizing that one of them is fucking the other's best friend.

I see an elderly man smoking a cigarette, contemplating whether or not he's going to hack off the arms of the girl behind him.

I hear the drinks pouring, the ice crackling as the liquor meets the cold surface..... the glass sounding like it's going to shatter and find its way home into another man's eyes.

Horrible images run rampant throughout my mind, testing every thread of sanity I've cherished for so long. I can hear the worst in them - these people who proudly display their ignorance at every turn. I feel my fingers curling around the top of my scalp, ready to rip the hairs out of my head. I'm choking in here..... I need air.....

My eyes are darting around the room, looking for a way out, when suddenly I feel my brother gripping my arm. Out of instinct, my head turned to look out the window in the direction of a young woman wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

It wasn't the silence that froze every muscle in my body when my eyes met hers. It was the absence of sound. For that one fleeting moment, I had seen every man and womans' worst nightmares personified in this being that I could feel piercing my heart with her gaze. I was looking at the face of Nothing.

There were no eyes there, but God I could see them. It was blackness defined.... it was shapelessness with all the most beautiful and terrifying features your mind could never begin to grasp in this world or the next. I can't begin to tell you how it made me feel for that single moment I saw her, because I didn't feel anything. She was a black hole sucking away every emotion I could ever potentially feel that would have defined my existence.

And suddenly...... it was over. Just like the smoky haze in the room, she curled away with a gentle gust of wind and was gone.

My brother was still gripping my arm, saying something. He repeated himself:

"Did you SEE it!?"

I wiped my hand over my mouth and shook my head. I wasn't the only one who had seen her, but I would rather lie to myself and pretend I'm crazy than to entertain the thought that I have a demon following my every move.

"Don't say it, man."

"I know you saw it, bro. It was JUST like before!"

"I said, don't fucking say it."

"She was looking at you. I know she was."

"Why in the hell would she be looking at me!? Just leave it alone!"

It was enough for him. Filling my body with poison would be the only way to drive her from my mind.......

---------------------------

.... and then I exhale.

Could she have been exactly what I thought she was? Or worse..... could she have been me?

Questions will plague me as I continue to sit here, waiting for that one moment when she will return and answer these riddles that send the greatest of men spiraling and screaming into the blackness of their own minds...... I will continue to wait for her.

She never came.