H.G. Wells and a Cold Basement

Here's the thing about Vicodin. About Captain Morgan and Camel Lights and stale Kit-Kats. About Wendy's quarter-pound double-stacks with cheese for $0.99 and denial and mourning the loss of something you never really had, but could've. Maybe.

Here's the thing about regret.

The thing is, you've got two options. Two viable options, anyway.

Option 1: You dive in. You wallow. You focus. You remember. You imagine. You imagine a best case scenario. You struggle to convince yourself of a daydream in full-color, surround-sound, smell-o-vision. You commit to it fully. You let it become you for as long as you can hold on and there, with your eyes closed and your heart slowing and the furnace kicking on in the background, you commit to living in denial. You rationalize and justify. You're enabling.

And it occurs to you that H.G. Wells was probably sitting in a cold basement, mourning and regretting, when the inspiration for The Time Machine hit him in the face like a fucking brick.

Because, really, the only people imagining a world where the past is a destination in a glossy, four-color travel brochure are people living with a shit-load of regret. Old H. to the G. had a severe fucking case of denial.

And it only takes one bad day before you're sitting right there with him, blowing hot air on cold fingers and trying to find the right words, the right story to bring you back there to that one wrong move. One bad choice.

You want to talk about the Butterfly Effect? Chaos theory?

Let's talk about action and reaction. Let's talk about choice and consequence.

For every action, there is a reaction. In grade-school, they talked about equal and opposite. Well, school's out kids and we're talking about something different. And let me tell ya, there's nothing equal here. This is a whole new textbook and you'll be lucky to get a passing grade.

You see, you pop three vicodin and wash it down with a couple rum-and-cokes and maybe it makes the cold a little easier to take. Maybe that kind of immediate control makes regret a little more palatable. And maybe tomorrow you wake up with a headache and a case of the shits.

But pretty soon the borrowed prescription has run out and the bottles are empty and there you are again. One more night in a cold basement, looking for some tiny bit of warmth. Some illusion of control. Some way to make the headaches stop and fuck if a quarter-pound double stack doesn't sound like it just might do the trick. And maybe tomorrow you just wake up with a case of the shits.

You pack in all the pills, alcohol, nicotine, and processed fast-food you can stomach. You pack all that in to an empty soul and you fill it up one night at a time. 3 Vicodin, 4 rum-and-cokes, 15 cigarettes, 2 double-stacks. You want to talk about un-equal reactions?

But sooner or later, and here's the real problem with Option 1, sooner or later someone comes along and brings a new drug to the equation. And this shit is like Vicodin on crack. Like crack on heroin on amphetamines. And all the other shit, all the stuff you've been packing in every night, that's child's play. And this new stuff, it doesn't hurt. You want to talk about un-equal reactions? Let's talk about the kinda warmth you feel when someone like her, when she looks at you and smiles. That's what we're talking about, really.

And that's the problem with Option 1. Because that kind of feeling, you can't forge a prescription for. You can't buy it in a paper bag or light it up with a novelty Bic or choke it down with a side of fries. That's the kind of feeling that you just gotta wait for. And once you've felt it and then it's gone? When it's not there the next night in your cold basement? You want to talk about hangovers?

Then there's Option 2.