Micro-Story: XO

  

tHE weEkND

             Leftover balloons and steamers. Smoke and mirrors disorient you further. The smell of latex laces your nostrils. You reminisce on the wicked games that were meant to be played. The remains of popped balloon sleeves create a checkerboard pattern on the laminate floor. Faulty florescent bulbs shine little light on the crumpled mass before you. The longer you strain your bloodshot eyes to stare at what used to be alive, the more disassembled the mass becomes. Limbs start to limp away from it, one by one they unattach. An arm is now in the bathroom and a foot is ramming itself into a wall and an eyeball just toppled down a flight of stairs. You are strangely unphased by these hallucinations. Does that scare you?

              Walking over to the bathroom you stumble on a rise in the laminate and are left on your backside, now face to face with the mass. You flick your stare quickly from the Styrofoam ceiling tiles to the heap crumpled beside you. You see the distorted face of your brother. His tongue is flopped out of his mouth, like a raw piece of meat, still fresh and bleeding. His eyelids are partially open, revealing a glimpse of yellowing pupils behind them. His eyelashes are glued together with sleep and tears, creating small, jagged shadows upon his cheeks. His lips are cracked and thirsty, dead and grey. Your gaze travels upward back to the ceiling tiles. You close your burning, bloodshot eyes.

               Slowly you open them, bringing the scene back into view. Next, you get up off the cold, textured floor. You gather the arm from the bathroom, halt the foot’s banging, and collect the eye from the base of the dark staircase. You make your way over to the mass, avoiding the cracked laminate this time. You proceed to fasten the limbs back onto your brother’s cold body, like fixing a broken doll. His body appears less mangled now and is easier on the eyes. The less strain on your eyes the better, they’ve been killing you all night.