Apothecarium

Do you ever wonder what life would be like if it was possible to put our feelings into bottles? To distil emotion. To be able to carry them outside of ourselves and experience them as intensely as we choose. What would that be like?

Imagine that, instead of writing a love letter, you could simply spill a drop or two of your love on to the paper. That, on opening that envelope, the recipient would experience all the colour and warmth and musical cadences of your feelings that words could never put across. Imagine that.

But imagine too, what someone with a pitcher full of hatred and anger could do. Imagine dousing someone in emotions so strong and so bitterly dark that they make you feel physically sick. Drowning someone in fury, making them choke on the fumes of greed and jealousy. Imagine the harm it could do.

The innocent happiness of children, the frustrations and fears of parents. The ignorant hatred and misguided anger of those who intentionally harm others. The quiet joy of creating something truly unique, and the fierce blazes of triumph when goals are met and limits surpassed. So many colours and scents and textures arrayed in bottles and jars.

Do you understand the opportunities?

Do you understand the risks?

Will you step forward and take a look at my wares?

I see you already have your eye on one.

Yes, I think some curiosity is just right for you...

Choke

How did this happen?

You already know the answer to that. A message you were never meant to receive. A call that never connected. You can see all of the pieces, and try as you might, you can’t stop them from fitting together.

And it hurts. It hurts like hell.

Even if you can tell yourself that it shouldn’t have happened the way it did, it doesn’t change the fact that it did happen. Maybe that’s what hurts the most. That no matter if the mistake was made or not, the outcome would still be the same. Someone you cared about would still be dead and there would never be a single damn thing you could have done about it.

But he did send the message to you, and you got it too late, and when you tried to call, there was no one left to answer.

When you found out what happened, it was impossible to process. You didn’t see it happen. The call never went through; it would be so easy to pretend it wasn’t real. But the message was still there, sitting in your phone inbox. ‘Help me, come get me.’ But it said ‘Dad.’ It was sent to the wrong number, it wasn’t meant to be for you. It wasn’t meant to be your responsibility, but now it is and you failed. You have to accept that it is real, and there will always be the thought that maybe there was something you could have done that you didn't and you will have to live with that every. Single. Day.

And all of this for the one person you just wanted to leave you alone.

Well, you got what you wanted, didn’t you?

And now you can choke on it.

Six AM in Smoke

It’s six in the morning and there’s an empty bottle of whiskey on the nightstand and a dead woman on the floor. There’s a knife in your hand too, but you didn’t put it there. You were not responsible for this.

Your fingers are limp around the handle, letting it merely lie in your palm. You cannot recall why it is there, or why you are allowing it to stay there, or if any of that really matters because as far as you can tell from here the dead woman was clearly shot instead of stabbed.

You exhale the mouthful of smoke you were holding. The cigarette in your fingers has burned down almost to nothing, but you take another pull on it anyway. You are unsure of many things; where you are, who this dead woman was, why you are holding a seemingly unrelated knife and whether there will be any more cigarettes after this one is finished.

The empty bottle of whiskey seems less important. You were never a fan of whiskey.

Dimly, you become aware of the sound of sirens somewhere outside. It seems an appropriate sound until you realise that it is moving away from you, not towards. Silence settles back over the room and you exhale another cloud of smoke. The cigarette finally falls apart into warm ash that coats your fingers. You continue staring at the ceiling.

Somehow, you know you should be feeling more than this. Sluggish memories of the time before are surfacing, but they are lacking in the appropriate emotions. You do not remember how or when you got here, but that this is a cheap motel on the outskirts of a city that you don’t know. You recall that this knife you are holding was used to cut the phone line in this room, but you don’t know who used it, or why. You don't know what happened to the gun that must have been there. You don’t know why you are inside this room, how you got here, or why you are still alive while that other woman is dead.

Perhaps it is to do with that needle that’s lying on the nightstand next to the bottle. Yes, perhaps that’s the reason you don’t remember, and the reason that all you really know for certain is that there is an empty bottle of whiskey on the nightstand, a dead woman on the floor, and a knife and a pile of ashes in your hands.

Marionette Wonderland

It is different for everyone.

For some, it is simple. Cold logic and hard facts come together as flat steel walls. Everything is ordered neatly and smoothly beneath their fingertips. It always makes sense, it always fits. There are no cracks, no gaps, only more smooth edges where the pattern can be continued as more logic and facts are added to the machine.

For others, their minds are like marionettes. Fragments suspended on strings and hanging in liquid darkness. Pulled this way and that. Half in control, half controlled by whims and follies and dreams. It may make sense when you follow a string to its end, but sometimes, it is better when it makes no sense at all. When you allow yourself to drown in your own mind.

And when you walk through Wonderland, you start to feel the strings. Attached to your arms, your legs, to every finger on your hands and wound around your neck. Who is in control here? Are you moving the strings, or are the strings moving you? You raise your arm, look at your hand. The strings hang slack, and you pull-

No, they told you to stop that. It isn’t Wonderland. It’s not real. There are no strings. There are no strings and no eyes and teeth that flash and grin in the dark. Return to the machine. Put the pieces of the puzzle back together. Remember, if they don't fit together, they won't stay. Put the red and black into their patterns, colour and shade on white backgrounds in perfectly ordered columns of numbers and ranks.

Relax. Focus, just like they told you. That isn’t a string around your neck, there is nothing tied to your hands at all. It isn’t dark here, you can see perfectly clearly. But then why can you still hear that voice at the back of your mind? That seductive purr and the ticking of clocks and suddenly you understand that gravity and sanity are linked so very intrinsically. 

After all, what difference is there between falling down the rabbit hole, and falling down a flight of stairs? All it takes... is one... little... step...