Chapter 31: Midnight Dust
Murph grapples with addiction and haunting memories as he and two companions spiral deeper into a night of reckless abandon.
Three faces, twisted in madness, huddled around the fire as its flames cast eerie shadows across their grim features. Their eyes held a manic glint, and their lips pulled into rictus grins, both unsettling and desperate.
The acrid stench of burning plastic clawed at their nostrils, and they inhaled the scent with an unsettling mixture of anticipation and need.
Murph opened his hand, his gaze fixed upon the tiny packets of dust nestled within. The other two leaned in closer, licking their lips, their breaths hitching with longing. Unaware of their eager anticipation, Murph’s thoughts consumed him.
Absolution in such small things, he thought, looking from his hand to the flames. Just a twist of my wrist and I could let them fall in the flames and be gone. He’d not be popular, but he’d step back from the abyss.
You’re a liability, his inner voice echoed, nudging him forward over the edge. Memories flooded Murph’s mind — their judgmental gazes weighing his past mistakes, accusing him, and finally deciding his exile. Their voices and faces reminded him why he was here, ready to leap into the abyss, to lose himself. To forget being cast out like a leper.
The gleam in the eyes of his companions spoke to the depths he’d already sunk.
Maybe I am a leper, he thought. He hated himself for the swiftness with which he crept back to old vices. Yet, despite the shame, his pulse raced at the mere thought of the contents in his hand.
“Give us a taste then, Merv.”
“Yea, stop showing off. Let’s have a whiff.”
A sly grin crept across Murph’s face, his eyes glinting with a mix of excitement and trepidation. “Shall we take the leap?” he suggested, his voice carrying a hint of reckless abandon.
“See, I told you he was a good oke, solid guy, this Merv I said. Since the old days.”
Murph struggled to remember the man’s name. Gad or Ged? It didn’t matter. The man remembered him and had brought him into their little circle.
Like a king, he handed over the gifts to his subjects, each man given his share of fairy dust. A tiny packet in each rough, calloused hand and a short straw. No mirrors for them. Who had an unbroken mirror on the streets? They all wallowed in bad luck, as it is.
They waited a moment for Murph to start, a minor pause, a tacit semblance of ceremony.
Murph pushed a little straw into his packet and took a big sniff. “Let’s fly!”
“Buh bye now,” said Ged or Gad, already giddy. One snort and he his pupils dilated alarmingly. He turned from the glaring fire, carefully squeezed his packet shut and clapped a hand on Murph’s back.
“Merv my boy, thank you.” he grinned with blackened teeth. The other man took two snorts in quick succession, and Murph raised an eyebrow at him.
“No sense in starting slow. Who knows what tomorrow brings?” said the man. His accent had a foreign lilt, an out of towner perhaps.
“Hah,” said Gad, clapped his other hand on the eager man’s back as well. The three sat connected,, putting their heads together as Murph joined them. In an instant, his mind expanded.
His perception of the world bloomed, and anxiety fell away. Grief and loss became small things. Pebbles in a river that gravity pulled down a mountain valley, it had to keep flowing. The pebbles jostled and moved, but forgotten as the excitement and energy coursed through his veins. His skin tightening and his cheeks aching from the grin he couldn’t stop.
They stood together bouncing off jellied legs, and they danced around the dying flames, whooping and howling like animals. Citizens drove past on sweeping highways and cursed at the scum of the earth, lazing and littering the darker shadows of their city.
Murph didn’t care. He didn’t hear them. He felt alive again, absolved and free of the chains of his guilt, the weight set down for a moment. Forgotten and freed. The three men danced, they yelled, they made music, and they swore their brotherhood would last until the end of time. Amidst peels of laughter, they made nicknames for each other, told stories with voices that couldn’t stop, with rivers of words that tumbled forth. They had realizations, and epiphanies and lightning bolt moments of clarity among the swirl of colors and joy.
They shared each and everything stray thought, embracing the spontaneous connection and belonging. They were a tiny tribe alone in the world together.
And then, like a shard of ice to the heart, it crashed down for Murph. He stumbled in their dance. Cold gripped his heart and memory stalked his child-like state.
He reached for his packet, but it was empty. “Already?” he murmured. He gazed up at the sky and saw with a dull ache in his gut the graying that signaled the dawn. The end of fun. The glaring eye of daylight would burn away the shadows that hid the sins of night.
In the light of a new dawn, old mistakes and new would crash in again.
Even that meager brightness hurt his eyes and he took out a pair of sunglasses, the magenta lenses casting the world in a happy hue for a moment. His fellows laughed and cheered him. They were still flying.
He pulled away, stumbling and slowing. They laughed and waved him off. They continued without him.
But he saw.
Bodies everywhere, crumpled on the floor, raging flames and a symbol.
He stepped around the bodies, not wanting to get their blood on him. Not wanting to defile the dead. But it was too late. He’d killed these people. Their blood was already on his hands.
That symbol was everywhere. He knew it. It was important.
On their armored chests and their burned backs. On their shattered helmets. A single letter marked them as servants of the great eye. Murph turned from their mass grave.
“Not right, not right, not right,” he muttered, crouching down now in the debris of the small veldt. The bodies gone, but the memory still clinging like the mist rolling in from the sea.
“Merv you ok?” Gad said, he smiled a false smile, and turned back to the foreigner.
Murph grew cold. He drew in his cloak and sat back down by their fire. Throwing on whatever he could to coax the flames back. To draw meagre warmth from the coals.
Murph saw the bus collide over and over with the barriers. He saw the explosion that threw him against the wall. He saw the bodies again.
“No, no, no, no,” Murph muttered over and over.
The others had sat down, the chill of the morning hastening their come downs and forcing them to seek the heat to keep the drugs going. Just for a little longer. But, now in scarcity, friendship wanes. They looked at each other now as enemies, eyes wild and grins became grimaces. Teeth bared.
In the flames Murph saw what he’d done, but more than that, he saw the truth. The symbol. The mark of the corrupt beast feeding off of their city. A single V.
“Missed it, missed it, missed it.” Murph rocked back and forth, his energy a downer to those around him. Nothing could be worse than the mood killer. The party ender - the guy who couldn’t handle.
“Enough, Merv!” said the foreigner.
“God dammit, this guy. He used to be much more fun. I swear,” said Gad or Ged, whoever it didn’t matter. The drugs were finished, the vibe was ruined, so they stumbled off.
A thought crystallized in Murph’s drug addled mind. It struck like a lightning bolt of ice in his stomach and spine. A thought so potent it made him he retched on the ground.
No, that was the drugs, Murph.
“They’re using them. The Company is using the Number.” It struck him then, a lighthouse beacon piercing through his haze—a way to be more than a liability, a way to make things right. Murph leaped to his feet, searching for landmarks to get his bearings.
“Oh, he’s dancing again, is he?” Gad’s voice oozed with sarcasm.
But Murph’s focus was unshakeable. Through his panic, he caught sight of the distant Company tower, and the glaring neon logo. The all-seeing eye staring down on all.
“I need to warn them,” he whispered urgently. He needed to tell Omni, Farook and even Zeke that the people they were trusting were going to betray them. He had to make them see.
His blood thumped in his veins, his heart racing, dizziness and nausea faught for dominance. Taking two shaky steps forward, Murph’s vision darkened and whirled. His last sensation was of Gad’s hands patting him down for any leftover drugs
“Can’t handle dust anymore, can we Merv?” said Gad.
Finding none, a boot collided with Murph’s ribs.
“Good for nothing,” Gad’s voice faded as Murph lost consciousness.