Color Blind

Chapter Seven

AN: If you guys haven't heard of Screaming Trees, you need to check them out-I'd recommend 'Dust'. This is Alice Said, which is not from that album. It's from 'Uncle Anesthesia', which I have in vinyl because the cover is friggin' cool.

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Cole's wrist hurt. Sean had grabbed it last night in a drunken attempt to force him upstairs and now it was swollen and bruised. Bending it hurt and he was pretty sure it was sprained. He'd iced it this morning, but there were no bandages in the house and he'd ended up wrapping it in an old scarf.

So far he'd been mostly successful with cutting his dosage back, bit by bit, but this morning he'd screwed up royally. The pain in his wrist had gotten to be too much to take and he had made a full dose and taken it. He was lying on the kitchen tiles now, listening to the fascinating sound of his breathing. It was a raspy noise. He knew he should get off the floor, but that sounded like too much work with too little payoff. The floor was fine.

Whaa...oosh. Whaa...oosh.

Was that what his breath sounded like to other people? Great, he was a rhinoceros. The image made him chuckle-he was much too thin to be a proper rhinoceros. More like a stork, perhaps, or a very scrawny crow. No...crows were loud. And they liked shiny things. How had he gotten on this subject again?

Whaa...oosh.

Oh, right. Breathing. The funny, rasping noise. He turned his attention to the feeling of the tiles against his arm. They were cool. He undid his scarf from around his wrist and laid his arm against the floor. The wrist protested. He ignored it.

His stomach still hurt and he grudgingly became aware that what little effect he'd gotten was wearing off. Damn.

Come back next time for more good feelings and strange musings from the mind of Cole Martin! his mind called. Cole envisioned a game show host waving and flashing creepily large teeth at an imaginary audience. Right on cue, said imaginary audience cheered and clapped.

"Great, I'm going crazy." he slurred to the ceiling. The ceiling, fortunately, had no reply.

He hauled himself off the floor-quite a daunting task for someone with one functioning hand-and rewrapped his wrist.

"Maybe I should've just run away from home and found an inpatient place." he said to the coffeemaker. "Stop this kind of thing from..." He yawned. "From happening."

The coffeemaker made a gurgling noise that seemed to translate into More coffee, less talk.

He got another mug and shuffled upstairs to get dressed properly. It probably wasn't a good idea to go out without a shirt.

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Nancy ditched her morning class-it was only sociology, after all-and stayed at home to take an extra-hot shower before work. She supposed she zoned out, because it was a nasty surprise when the water went cold.