Fluctuation [excerpt] – Kristina Golec

June 24, 2020

It’s an onslaught of vibrant colours and sounds. A veritable cacophony of riotous figures and sensations flooding the senses. There’s a +100x to fire rate of the otherwise standard AK-47 that’s causing all this ruckus and damnation. There’s only one, but one is enough to create the damage already being seen and done and inflicted by the perpetrator to the masses of screaming and crying civilians dead and dying and striving to survive, some of which were massively failing. The perpetrator of the vicious ideology but only because it’s been co-opted by the extremists who give all of us other nihilists a bad name. No, it’s not that I’m bitter per se, but more that I’m a vindictive bitch and a petty bastard who refuses to accept ideological extremists taking my worldview and twisting it into a bullshit ‘cause.’ As if nihilism is meant for the ‘woke’ and/or those who are smarter than everyone else and need to show it off in a display of petty pussification of their actual want which is just the same as they did in high school but they’ve now been radicalized because they’re a pathetic little cunt of an incel. So, there’s that, but there’s also the problem regarding my untimely death. It figures that the capitulation I made for my best friend forever and ever would get me shot up with tens of hundreds of bullets riddling my body and making my insides cold as I lay bleeding out on the dance floor. And now I’ll never know if that deal I was trying to make with that eBay seller will go through. It’s not as if it was a particularly good or valid purchase, but I wanted to treat myself for once. Not to mention that the individual in question was a pretty cool dude. Seemed genuinely interested in my story and why I wanted something so niche.

Wait.

Why can’t I feel pain anymore? Am I finally dead? Because I was bleeding out for a while. Even had my life flash before my eyes. I don’t feel dead. But, then again, it’s not like I have anything to compare it to. I don’t exactly know what that’s like yet. Or do I? When I open my eyes I see smooth, white plaster suspended above my head. My suddenly aching face. Was I shot in the face? I don’t remember. But, just because I don’t remember, doesn’t mean I don’t have bullet wounds in my face. Is my depth perception messed up? Did I lose an eye? How can I tell? Is there something specific I can do to find out? Mulling over all of this is making me tired and so now I just want to sleep but I don’t know what to do about the guy in scrubs talking to me. Over me? About me? I can’t really hear anything. Did I go deaf? Ugh. Why won’t you shut up? Aaand now this guy is screaming and my face is hurting even more. A burning sensation of screaming fire and flame and brimstone flooding my senses and melting my skin. I close my eyes and I curse and grit my teeth. Grinding the enamel down in order to distract from the animal’s screech of delirium that is the pain I’m experiencing. Undue stress from the already stressful situation. Disgusting wretches filling my senses of hearing.

And then it stops.

When I open my eyes again, there’s a more familiar ceiling above my head. My stained and dirtied popcorn ceiling from my apartment bedroom that costs way more than it’s worth. My aggressive hatred for the decrepit room is delayed by the fact that I wasn’t in my bedroom a second ago. In fact, I don’t think I was breathing. Or was I and I was too focused on something else. A cat’s meow? My cat died, like, a year ago. Am I dead? Or did I buy another cat and forget about it? Or is it a stray? Again, I don’t know. But I guess it’s worth looking into. So, I turn my head and I see my cat. She’s staring at me with a look of intense amusement. As if I’m stupid for not understanding the situation. She always was a smug little shit.