"You, my dear, have the soul of a writer."
I cringed before glancing at him with a scowl. "You mean the soul of a poet?"
"No. God, no. You're the furthest thing from a poet. Whereas a poem has the capability of designing a truth endowed with ribbo...
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PSA: ARE YOU AT RISK OF BECOMING SOMEBODY'S LUNCH?
Amy stepped around the trailer in nothing but a black shawl speckled with embroidered flowers, dripping with cotton fringe that was about half an inch long. She twirled, and the dark material moved about her in a flurry, as though she could manifest her shadow itself and manipulate it at will in a dance.
"It was what really first sent Disney into the gilded overlord that it is today, worshipped more than Christ, and what made Mickey Mouse bloat into a disgusting goddamn cow." Her words came out rushed—bordering on frantic—loud and muddled together. She studied the bookshelf beside the front door with fierce intensity, taking out a worn paperback copy of A Clockwork Orange. She held the book up as she looked at me; her eyes were wide, ringed red with dilated pupils. "Does a man live here?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, one."
"I figured." She set the book on top of the shelf. "It was their 1940 breakout film. A bit over a hundred-twenty minutes overall, and that was more than enough. You need to keep in mind the time, Cassandra—that point in history, what exactly was going on. The world was at war, and they provided a sweet relief that we needed so intensely, we haven't allowed ourselves to be released from their clutches ever since. People love Fantasia, Mickey fucking Mouse, and all the other cute little obsolete blockbusters that came after. And theyknow that, and they've been taking advantage and infiltrating and inflating to the point of becoming a grotesquely stretched version of its original self—like some repulsive and tacky caricature—do you know how much a ticket to Disneyland is? Four? You think Walt intended for that? He just wanted the park to be an affordable day trip for the family. It's growth, Cassandra! We're watching an idea transform into a denizen, and what're we supposed to do about it?"
I wasn't sure how to respond to her, not quite positive what she was even talking about. Her rant was triggered from seemingly out of nowhere, and yet all I wanted to do was hear her ramble on. There was a fire inside my brain and it scorched away any sense of reason or life, ash sifting through my cells and sparking in exhilarating shocks under my pores. The high had never truly left, even after a dead sleep, and I fully intended to ride it out and experience it for everything it had—the gods and the monsters. It was Amy's proposal to keep it going, taking out a tincture bottle from her purse and using the dropper to place a speck of red under our tongues. We kissed immediately afterwards, as if to somehow mix the drug with our own essence, making the trip even more intimidate. She then introduced a bright red powder that filled the bottom of a purple dime bag, probably just enough for a sniff each.
I was all for it, nothing ever coming close to the sensations that I was experiencing now. I felt like a creature of stardust, living on a lonely organism made of atoms that were scattered by divinity, inhaling century old sunlight and a pulsing breeze as the Earth drew breath. So important, yet wholly insignificant.
