Sam, 33, lived alone in a flat off of Kings St. in Platville, NC.
Sam was bored.
Sam woke up, rolled over, turned on the news, & laid in bed for another hour.
Sam then got out of bed, took a messy shit while reviewing social media, then reclined in front of his TV.
Sam did these things every single day.
In front of his TV Sam worked while huffing, hawwing, standing & moaning for about 9 hours every single day.
Bursts of productivity were punctuated by dissociative lapses where the figures on the television anesthetized him from his life.
Sam started drinking before the end of his workday every single day.
Some days Sam started drinking when he woke up.
Some days Sam waited until 8PM. Those days Sam felt good about his behavior. The next day he’d drink more in a kind of reward.
Sam felt a vague fear and self-loathing about his behavior, but justified it in that millions of others do the same things, live worse lives for less money, and that, in comparison to others he wasn’t drinking That Much.
Sam knew he was courting cancer. Sam hadn’t accepted death, but he persisted in unhealthy activities because he could not envision another life. Cancer was a hypothetical anyway.
Death seemed grey and ominous. When Nothing was considered too long it might bring a panic attack.
Such panic was easily resolvable with more drinking. The senselessness, the mindlessness was what Sam craved. So Sam continued to drink, even though it bored him.
Even though drinking bored him as his whole life bored him.
Because Sam was a petit alcoholic.
Worse than petit alcoholism, though, was the lack of imagination Sam put forth. When he was young, he was a Creative. Nothing exorbitant, however he could put out interesting thoughts which captivated friends.
But friends were gone.
Sam lived alone in a flat off Kings St.
With time the banality of his anxieties and their resolutions started to wear on him.
Everything was easy to fix, and that was hard to cope with. Sam didn’t know why it was hard to cope with. It stuck in the back of his brain every day, an anxiety not quenched by booze.
The pre-obesity of his habits & lackadaisical satisfaction of his fears, the pleasant and vague dissociations he achieved with an uninhabited mental presence during his waking hours.
It was leading toward nothing slowly.
Worse, Sam could not envision a way to resolve his ache.
Held between fear of death and growing dread of each day, Sam began to drink less. Then more. Then less again. Then more. Then, Sam stopped drinking cold turkey.
At first he felt awful. Then he felt great, better than he’d ever memorably felt.
But as Sam began storing memories with greater clarity he realized how little he had to live for. He worked better, harder, for longer, and received more praise. But it was meaningless. He still resented his tasks as he’d resented each of life’s banalities forever.
As he functioned better, he could articulate better his boredom, the advanced tedium he lived with. But while he was tired of living he remained terrified of dying.
So Sam decided to drink himself to death.
Sam restarted by buying a nice bottle of Ardbeg and drinking all night. He had a little money, he’d not done too much in his life.
Sam rolled over, flipped on the news, took a shot, tucked himself back in, and half-slept until he right truly woke, then poured a nice peaty knuckle.
As his habit advanced, his body protested. Most days he woke up feeling grotesque, and often he looked so. But his job was easy. No one questioned his appearance. Barely anyone saw him anyway.
An advanced net of alarms and schedules kept him propped up and pressing buttons.
So long as he kept pressing buttons, money came from the faucet, and, when passed through the right filter, liquor came out of the money.
Sam bloated around his middle and bruised easily. Sam’s innards hurt.
Sam was terrified of the person he saw so he removed the mirrors from the inside of his house. The funny thing was, Sam removed those mirrors when he was blackout drunk. He couldn’t remember doing so. He inferred he’d done it from the fact that no one else had been in his flat.
There was another Sam who did things for wakeful Sam during blackouts. Two Sams.
The second Sam cooked for wakeful Sam. Second Sam worked for wakeful Sam. Wakeful Sam only sought alcohol.
Blackout Sam played at strange habits. Cleaning the house. Responding to Sam’s mother.
One day Sam woke up with a cast around his foot & a prescription for Ativan. Sam was unaware of how he’d acquired these things though there was blood in his den & a hopelessly smashed coffee table.
In this moment Sam feared death with a greater intensity than ever before.
So Sam acquired a handle of pure grain alcohol, because the normal liquor left him withdrawing even while he was drunk.
He downed it.
And after that moment Sam’s life improved.
Sam could no longer remember where he came from or form new memories.
He could not remember why he drank or any more anxiety.
The nag in the back of his mind disappeared. Sam briefly wondered why he’d ever had a job at all, or why he woke up or went to bed.
Words were utterly lost to Sam, as was time, and fear. Joy, long lost to Sam, never reared again its ugly head, and a sense of absolute gelatinous nothingness pervaded him.
Nothing.
Then, a week later, Sam came back into memory.
His house was wholly reordered.
Sam’s taxes were paid. Sam’s clothing was clean. Sam had meal prepped for the next month. Sam was married. Sam’s wife was pregnant. Sam’s boss was happier with him than ever before. Sam’s sallow skin was tight but supple, the yellow had turned to a golden glow.
This terrified Sam.
He fled his home, and he drank until he could no longer remember himself.
When he woke again, he owned his own company.
This terrified Sam.
He fled his company, and he drank until he could no longer remember himself.
When he woke again, he was Pope.
As Pope, he asked God, “Why am I here? How did these things come to me?”
A bellow sounded from the heavens, and a laugh. A column of flames descended on St. Peter’s, and from it spoke a voice that ruptured each of Sam’s organs as it healed them in full.
And the voice said…. absolute gibberish.
The voice was totally incomprehensible.
The flame disappeared and Sam was left alone in the Basilica as he’d been in his apartment.
And Sam was afraid, so he drank until he could no longer remember himself.
This time Sam died.
