Chapter Two - Lucidity

After Damon awoke he found himself laying on the floor for several minutes contemplating as to what just happened. Might have just been the drugs I suppose. 

As soon as he got up he went to the shower to meditate on his thoughts, he stood for a long time meandering on the images he saw in his dreams, how vivid and intense they seems to be. I just need a good nights rest and then I'll be okay in the morning. As soon as he got out of the restroom and got dressed for bed he realised it was already five a.m. 'Well I suppose I'll just stay up until head into town today'.

Three hours passed and Damon decided to go into down to pick up supplies for the cabin, he went to the local small town retail store. A man named Jack managed the place, he had a local reputation for being both cheap and having a less than favourable nature about him. "Stopped by for some supplies eh Damon"?

"I just need some more ink pens and type writer paper" he said. Damon noticed Jacks diminished appearance and noticeable grogginess. He looked as if he'd been on a three day drinking binge, his eyes were sunken in, rough unshaven beard and a pale complexion gave Damon the notion that he'd had a trying past few days.
"What's wrong with you Jack? You seem a bit worse for wear."

"Uh nothing I'm fine, just fine. How's the writing going?"

"Are you sure? You seem really rough, how've you been?"

"I said I'm fine Damon, get your fucking supplies and get out my store."

"Fine I'm going didn't need to get upset, I'm leaving."

Jack should really go fuck himself, he need to get out or something, staying inside your store all day with access to the liquor aisle must take a toll on him. Damon began to get angry thinking about the whole predicament, he started clenching his jaw tightly and balling up his fists. His anger often took control of his body when it warranted. Everything would become affiliated with how he was feeling, he couldn't control it sometimes, sometimes everything would turn a deep dark black and he would lose all train of thought, all sense of being and rationalisation. He became not like himself, something would click and he would become immensely catatonic with no reaction. It was like the lights were on, but no one was home, everything just washed over his being with no sense of where and what he was being involved with. He found himself blankly standing outside of the store, he had no clue how long he had been standing for or what had occurred between the elapsed time, no sense of thing, just null emotive responses with no urge to inquire as to what just happened. Damon just continued on to his car with the notion that he had dozed off in a sudden day dream and forgot all about his anger.

Driving home Damon encountered another day-dream when he arrived back at the cabin, this time he was on the back porch beginning to read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" it was his favourite other than "Oil!". He went to sit down and remembered the incident that occurred earlier on. His anger arose in him again with a stronger semblance hatred, more so than he felt more commonly. He wanted to do something about it.

Jack is a fucking cunt

The more Damon dwelt on the matter the worse he began to feel, he simply could not, did not, want to deal with the stress, so he thought of beating him, he thought of take a large blunt instrument and bashing his skull in. He could only vent through his hatred, he always felt the need to hurt someone that made him this angry, but he couldn't, that would be inhuman of him. He proceeded to indulge in his malevolent thoughts and meditated on the fact that he needed to do something about his repressed anger. I just need to see a doctor a good professional, someone that actually cares, good, cognitive, and pays attention. He lit a cigar he had in the ash tray and opened up the novel and started to read.

The next few hours went by relatively smoothly with no antagonizing thoughts or controversial emotions. Damon simply just sat, relaxed, and smoked a quality cigar while reading some old books he had on the coffee table, he felt better, at peace and relaxed, almost completely passive. It was nightfall when he decided that maybe it would be good to go on an evening stroll with Simon, as he could never really sleep during the night. As he was exiting the house he noticed something in the far east side of the clearing before you entered the woods, he couldn't make out what it was for all he knew it was a bush or a tree cascading a shadow. He paid it no attention more and traveled onward down the old dirt road he lived on towards the other side of the property where he often took Simon out to strut around.

Chapter One - The Conflagration

It was a usual Saturday afternoon for the outer regions of Washington State, considering the forest was always peaceful and secluded, with the nature, and solemn trees. It left one in a complacent state, almost ethereal to think about it. No notion of the outside world really existed here. Just solitude and obscurity, one would often have existential debates as to why everything was here, why the trees stood as they were, why the grass was as it is, why it was all being destroyed by loggers in an attempt to appease consumers for a capital industry. Damon thought of these things oft, and wondered with intense neuroticism as to the outcome of the forests future. He had lived here for some time more than three years, and it struck him that one day, these trees and this land would be raped for the exchange of paper currency that would be spent on things not need by people who didn’t deserve it. Such is the way of life, he thought. 

Everything he loved was gone nature was all that he had left, his last mistress, his last lover, his last remorse for a dying and cruel world. Suffering and pain are commonplace in his life, more so than what is already set by the standards of society, he will never have what he once did, and he will never regain what once was; that part of his life is over now – and it always will be. Damon’s family had left him many years ago, it was always very peculiar how it all occurred, he had arrived home from work and the house was empty, no one was around, the cars were all still parked in their perspective places, the house left intact, they were just gone. The police found it suspicious at first but just assumed that there had been domestic problems and that Damon’s wife had left him and took the kids. Months had passed and he still had heard nothing, detectives at the local precinct narrowed it down to a few things, maybe she left the country, maybe his wife changed her last name. 

Whatever happened Damon never found out and was left with empty answers from the local law enforcement inspectors. He tried to move on as best as he could, leaving his old life, quitting his ramshackle of a job, and moving to Washington State, just outside of Aberdeen, in a small remote town localised in the forest. It had always been his vision to become a best-selling author so he took up writing to forget his pain, although it didn’t help any more than the anti-depressants he choked down every night with an eighth of whiskey. Today was a usual day for him, he was outside looking upon the nature with awe and callous all at once, he loved the nature so, but he envied how at peace everything was. He wanted that peace. He would never find it, no matter how hard he tried, he was dead and somber on the inside, nothing but a harsh remorse remained, even he would be impervious to Freud’s psychoanalysis. Large families of mountain quail were soaring above in the great blue abyss; he often wondered how it would feel to have the freedom of the open sky. Don’t think too hard, you do that too much, just calm down and remember your breathing, don’t let depersonalization take hold. ‘Time to go inside I suppose, need to calm down’. He said to himself. As Damon walked to the cabin he looked over at the fire pit he had made a few months back for sitting outside on the cold, dank, lonely, nights with his liquor and prescription medication induced delirium. He remembered attempted overdoses and unsuccessful suicides and the everlasting feeling of self-contempt and lack of self-worth. He missed his family more than anything and he didn’t even know what occurred while he was working that day, no trace was left behind, nothing was taken everything was left as is. Almost like they completely vanished off of the face of the Earth. Stop thinking about it you can’t change anything now, just go inside and continue your writing. 

Damon wrote to pass the time, to pass the time of what he felt was endless, days felt like months, months felt like years, and years felt like decades. When one endures so much everything bears down on you and it never seems to end, which is why he felt inebriation every so often was applicable and justifiable to his needs. As he walked through the doorway his black Labrador Simon approached him with the usual excited and optimistic manner that he always has, to Damon, Simon was everything his last companion and his only family. He would be even more so dreary without him, Simon had been the only one left in the household when Damon came home, at least she didn’t take him, he thought. They never usually left each other for long, both relied on one another for company. ‘Come on Simon let’s get you something to eat’. The canine quickly reacted and marched to his bowl, while Damon was getting his food the feeling of nausea was taking over his body. I need to get my meds, this is too fucking much – He usually became nauseous from his anxiety, his companion noticed and winced at him. ‘Hold on mate I’m coming, here you go’. When he was finally done with nurturing his dog, he sat down at his decade’s old typewriter. He had been working on several screenplays, as that is how he made his living, he wrote for the local playhouse, those pretentious fucks can never get off my ass about the deadlines, better get busy. As he was typing the Prozac and Xanax he popped started to kick in, and so began his euphoria, to him it made the pain – and the typing much easier, it made everything much easier...

He was writing a play about an old man that owned a villa, the old man’s villa was vacant, vacant like Damon’s heart. The old man – Cyrus was his name, his wife had just died and his son was always at conflict with him over living alone in the dilapidated building, and so the story was based off of the tension and uneasiness, and loneliness the old man felt, familiar Damon? ‘Oh shut up’. He said to himself, he often spoke to himself, considering that and the dog were the only ways he maintained his sanity. Damon started to become dizzy and disorientated, he began to assume that maybe he had overdone it this time with the meds.

Not this again, ugh I need to be careful I don’t want to overdose, or do I?

He got up quickly, too quickly, which caused the blood to rush to his temples.

‘Ah shit, this is not good’.

As he was trying to stagger he grabbed the chair and fell to the ground, and like that was out cold.

Damon, wake up Damon.

‘What? Who’s there?’

Damon, you need to get up Damon,

‘Please, my head hurts honey leave me alone, give me a minute.’

‘Wait..’

DAMON WAKE UP I’M BURNING ALIVE DAMON.

Damon looked up to see what was going on with blurry vision. 

‘Cecilia! What’s happening?!’
And then Damon awoke to Simon, giving him a nudge against the noggin.