I decided to go to the railroads versus home. Linda would be way too pissed if I came home right now, she was busy with her stupid bake sale.

Baking and drinking boxed wine while watching Downton Abbey on her tiny laptop was how she coped with, well, basically her entire life. I don’t really help much, with my shitty behaviour. Sometimes I feel bad, sure, but that’s nothing a sneak into the liquor cabinet can’t help.

“Pass it already, dickweed.” Some slum next to me mumbles, he looked to be a freshman, sixteen if I was being kind. I wasn’t. His words slurred, and I push him off of me, letting him slump over the stage-like platform.

I wonder what kind of play I would be in. Westside story, maybe. I chuckle, coughing. Lazy red eyes look over at my small fit of laughter, prying. They wish to know my hidden jokes, what I tell myself when no one can hear. I flicker my sight downwards, at the rusted tracks. They wouldn’t get it, the joke I mean. Not to sound like that kid, but frankly, they wouldn’t get me either. Not personally.

The slumped corpse moves, wiggling back onto our musical, craving to taste the lyrics we passed around in the form of the oblong glass structure, disguised as a vague simple vase. Supposedly, at least. If I squinted and maybe took out the inner pieces, a blind man would place his flowers there. The corpse wraps its cold fingers around my wrist, and I pass the abstract glass to him, not wanting the touch of the dead man on my skin.

He takes it eagerly, eyes filled with reds and pinks alike, his bladder and lungs spotted in black. Vio is gone, disappeared. His frantic fingers touching the air which he had become, and I can’t conjure his image to mind.

Eventually, my hidden metaphors and similes untangle themselves from my tongue, breaking free from my skin and choking me in their vile and blood. My high wears off, and I am once more a greasy kid on an old platform, begging for a fantasmal adventure.

Fuck this.

I stand up, my knees wary of the sudden activity, spots circling my vision as I stand. No high this time, simply low iron. Weak. The corpse becomes a kid once more, and Vio materializes from the air, slumped and tired on a stool, looking at a crow picking over white abalone bone.

I pick up my bag, not bothering to say anything to any of the other kids, just grabbing a stick of gum and shoving it in my dry pasted mouth. My knees shake as I jump off the platform, disregarding the stairs entirely.

Everything was going peachy keen, till I heard the bloody sirens. Who the fuck says peachy keen. Me, I guess.

Sirens wail in my ears, a moody baby demanding attention, snacks, anything. This baby demanded me, and any chance of freedom I currently had. I take off in a sprint, Vio in tow. The boys disperse, shambling here and there, wobbling as if on heels of nails.