*Magnify*
SPONSORED LINKS
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1421695-Fluids
Rated: 18+ · Short Story · Emotional · #1421695
This may or may not have to do with schizophrenia or multiple personalities.
He withdrew from the past night's slumber, and shuddered to discover the bitter, acrid taste of dried vomit in his usually immaculate mouth. He stuck his index finger in, and felt his way around the amalgam of reversed consumptions. It seemed to him that he had had too much to drink, but then he remembered that he'd never in his life drank alcohol. As abruptly as the coming of dawn, his index finger leaped from the roof of his mouth to the crotch of his pants. The zipper was already undone for him, and he briefly pondered the identity of the kind soul that had given him one less thing to do that morning. (Was it even morning? He suspected that it might be afternoon, but a quick glance at the digital alarm clock next to his bed led him to believe it was actually six in the evening.) He felt around inside his pants, and his finger laid to rest on dried semen. It seemed to him that he had masturbated at some point before falling asleep, but then he remembered that he'd never in his life masturbated. He laid in bed for what seemed like hours. (Were they hours? He suspected that it might have been only one hour, but a quick glance at the digital alarm clock next to his bed led him to believe that only six minutes had actually passed.) He tried his damndest to place himself in the right context, in order to remember more clearly just what had happened, but it turned out that the year was 1947, and his mother was lying in a hospital bed in Brooklyn, a look of utmost agony on her strained face, clutching his father's hand until it was redder than the ripest of tomatoes, and subsequently giving birth to him. He was dressed in scrubs, a mask over his nose and mouth, gently tickling his mother's toes. (There I am, he thought. I'm on my way.) But his mother pushed and pushed, for days and days, and nothing came out. The doctors were forced to conclude that she had never been pregnant at all, and it was this final conclusion that brought him jarringly back into the present. (They've been lying to me for years, he realized. I wasn't born in 1947! I wasn't born at all! How could this be?) Unable to solve the mystery of the vomit, semen, or his birth, he sighed twice, cleared his throat once, rolled over onto his left side, and fell promptly back asleep. He awoke later that evening (the beckoning light of the digital alarm clock next to his bed boasted that it was two in the morning) to find himself feeling refreshed and clean. He briefly reconsidered how he came to be so, but was eventually able to let the nagging feeling go and merely accept. He brushed his hand against his cheek and was pleasantly surprised to learn that in a matter of hours, he had sprouted a month's worth of exquisite facial hair. He couldn't be certain that it looked exquisite, but it certainly felt exquisite. He noticed himself standing upright in the corner, smirking amicably and shaking a crooked finger at himself.
(It's time to rise, he-in-the-bed thought.)
(It's time to leave, he-in-the-corner thought.)
As he-in-the-bed swung his legs, hanging them down over the edge of the bed, he-in-the-corner did the same, using the window as his point of reference. As one stood up, the other fell down. The twin, reverse actions cancelled one another out, time momentarily stopped, and his two halves were abruptly jolted together, as he found himself at an Italian restaurant sitting across from a beautiful woman with tousled red hair and dangerously full lips. She grinned at him seductively, and he nearly fainted, he couldn't believe his good fortune.
"What day is it?" he wondered aloud.
"June 8th," she promptly answered, uncrossing her legs.
He seemed to remember that it had just been the evening of June 9th, when he had awoken in bed, covered in dried fluids. He stood up from his chair in shock, and bolted from the restaurant. The redhead pouted for a moment, then turned her flirty eyes in the direction of a cute waiter and motioned to him with her index finger. A digital alarm clock next to a bed in a Manhattan apartment blinked 12:00, over and over and over, signaling a power outage, or perhaps something more sinister.


If you are at all interested in what I think this might actually be about, leave a review and I'll explain.
© Copyright 2008 Jumping Fences (jumpingfences at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates have been granted non-exclusive rights to display this work.
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1421695-Fluids