"It's that sorta night." Aww, you know the kind. When you're looking at stains in the carpet and reminiscing about how they happened. Right now I'm looking at this one stain in the middle of the room. It's really big, real wide, but I cleaned it up real good so it's hard to see unless you know what to look for, and since I'm the one that made the stain, I know what to look for, and what to look for is this little grayish bit (the rest of the carpet is a sort of tan colour), and the texture of the stained carpet looks all softer, fuzzier-like. So, I'm looking at this stain... and it's funny, you look at a stain for long enough, you start to remember, not just how it happened, but WHEN it happened, you know? Like, how you felt, who you were with, what you were FEELING when it happened... like that time you had red wine on the white carpet and you KNEW you weren't supposed to have red wine on the white carpet in case it spilled, but you weren't gonna spill it 'cause you KNEW that if it got spilled it would leave a big stain that wouldn't ever come out, so you were gonna keep an extra careful eye out for spillage, right? But it got spilled anyways, right? And, the funny thing is, you KNEW it was gonna get spilled, RIGHT BEFORE IT HAPPENED, and when it did happen you just watched in slow motion, but the slow motion started RIGHT BEFORE IT STARTED TO SPILL... so it just tumbled down, and you watched it fall, 'cause there really wasn't anything you could do but watch the glass bounce off the carpet as the ruby drops hit the floor, one after the other... And you remember that you KNEW it was gonna happen, and you think that's kinda funny, like, How Did I Know? And you ALMOST get that feeling back, that feeling where you KNEW what was gonna happen... like when you pick up the phone and say hello for no reason, and someone ANSWERS BACK... like that, when you look at that stain. So I'm looking at this stain? Yeah, I'm looking at this stain. I'm thinking about how it happened... See, I was sitting in the closet, not a real big closet, but I can sit in it, and I was scraping out a weed pipe, 'cause even though my lungs won't really do nothing for me no more, sometimes it helps to just DO SOMETHING, you know? So I was attacking it with this paper clip, and I'm thinking about stuff, but I'm not really sure what I'm thinking about. It's like when your train of thought just leaves the station without letting you know, and you're all wrapped up in what you're thinking about 'cause you're thinking about it so hard, but when someone waves their hand in front of your face and you snap out of it, you can't for the (un)life of you remember what you were just thinking about, even though you were thinking about it so damn hard... so I'm thinking thoughts like that, and I put down the pipe, and I don't even KNOW why I put it down, I just do, like I'm about to drop it or something, and I get this feeling like something is about to go wrong, and I stand up to walk out of this closet, and right when I'm going to do that, it's like this feeling comes over me, and I KNEW it was about to happen, and then it DID happen... It's like there's this point, right? And on the line leading up to the point, you know exactly what's happening. You know what's GOING to happen, and you know what HAS happened. The line has a known value. But you hit that point, and the line just SWITCHES DIRECTION on you, and you might think you're on the same line, but no, this is a whole different line that crossed your line, and you're in a whole 'nother place that you don't even know, and the whole shit's way out in left field. That moment when you switch... even if you don't know that you know... YOU KNOW. You know that something's happened, you know that you're not in fucking Kansas anymore. So, when I stood up, that moment just hit me. Everything was in slow motion, y'know? And my head had this feeling, like my mind has this coil spring that was winding and winding and winding and then BAM!!it justPOPSOUT!! aNDwent all bendy, like when you break your TOYS!! as a kid-= and can't fix 'em and neither can your parents so they spent all that money on a toy for nothing for NOTHING and you broke it. ANd I swear man, I just fall to the ground, I crumple like a cheap whore socked in the gut by a pimp stiffed on his cut. And there's this new feeling in my head, like this angry roar like this jet engine testing out it's engines and I can't even THINK over the noise that I'm the only one who can hear, but I CAN think, there's this whole *other* voice and that voice thinks just fine, in fact that voice thinks MORE than fine it just keeps up this constant constant chatter and I can almost sort it all out but that roar... I was so scared, man. I'll say it, I don't care, I'm not manly, I wanted to cry, it would've been some sort of release, y'know? I try and get up a few times, but it's not working out but when I finally do get up, I make it to the middle of the room and my nose just almost POPS and all this blood just comes shooting out like when you drop a glass of red wine on the carpet and I see it in slow motion and it falls in ruby drops but it looks soooo beautiful and that's the only thing I can think about over the roaring and the chatter and it's like I have three voices yelling at me but there's still that 'me' to yell at so there's like four voices and I fall down again and try and squeeze everything out of my head... And it doesn't work and I finally DO start crying... And after a little while it starts to go away, but by this time my eyes are bleeding and my nose has stopped and so have my eyes, but still, there's a big stain, and I wanna clean it up. 'Cause the room and the house are dirty, yeah, but they're not really dirty, see? There's just stuff everywhere, but the stuff itself is actually clean, it's just not tidy, but everything is clean. 'Cause I wanna be clean so I try to be clean, I wash my hands like eight times a day even if they don't need it 'cause I'm sure they DO need it, every last thing you touch is dirty, so I know I have some carpet cleaner, 'cause even though no one's gonna see the stain, I'm ashamed of it like I did something wrong and I don't wanna have to look at it 'cause I know it'll make me cry again, so I try and I try and I try and I scrub, but I have to stop like 6 million times because that noise just come back again and again, and the whole time there's that chatter and it's just talking about EVERYTHING AT ONCE and I'm still scared. And I'm even thinking about *that* at the same time. But it finally all goes away, you know? It just kind of all stops... I think that's what happens, at least... 'cause I only know it's REALLY gone for sure when I can't remember what it feels like. It's like, I'm on the ground in the throes of agony clenching my head trying to scrape blood out the floor knowing that at any second the world might turn to shit for the 77th time around me and then BAM! it's gone, and I'm down to me again, which may or may not be a good thing but it's a damn sight better than what was happening just a minute ago I think from what I can remember. And I start to cry again, but this time it's good crying, because now I know the scariest thing that ever happened in my life, scarier than when I got turned, even, scarier than when I saw "Jaws" when I was a little kid or when I had that nightmare about the devil chasing me around when I was a little kid, the scariest thing I ever felt was GONE, and I couldn't remember how it felt. And that was such a relief, that I couldn't remember how it felt, and I just cried and cried and I was so happy. And I tried to clean up the blood, I really did. I tried so hard, my hands hurt, my fingers hurt, my knees hurt, but I never really got it all out. And usually I don't think about it, I don't even really notice it, but it's still there and *I* know it's still there. I'm still a little ashamed about it, you know, even though I really have no reason to be ashamed about ANYTHING that was out of my control. But I'm looking at that stain right now, and I'm thinking about it, and it's happened since then, the head thing, and it's always kind of scary, but sometimes I LIKE IT but it still always hurts so much... but I'm looking at that stain and I'm *SCARED*. I'm scared shitless, because I can ALMOST remember how it felt, and I'm scared if I really do remember how it felt it'll happen again like it happened that time and it'll never ever stop again, I'm scared like if you die in a dream you're supposed to die in real life, like that, y'know? I'm... I'm just scared of what happened, and how it felt, 'cause I know how what happened, even if I can't remember how it felt... but I look at the carpet, and I start to remember, and I'm scared I'll remember more than I should. I'm scared I'll remember things I've been trying to forget. -Ukolovik "Fact or Fiction?" Tile