incision

<div id= "left"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/wdR0LFV.jpg" alt="limb" height="120px"> <div id="right"> (set: $bed to $bed +1) salt sting in the eye and vile wet bed sheet signal something terrible has happened something terrible has happened something terrible has happened but you don't know what. you've done this all on your own. check to make sure all your limbs are there, extremeties attached. head crushed, pieces of skull floating in the fishbowl but it remains serviceable set atop your neck. fingernails ripped off like always and something new is that your toenails are ingrown. all of them. wipe your tears. you need to tell her about the dream you've just had. <div id= "left"> [[go to the show|show]] [[go to her apartment|apartment]] [[go to the grocery store|grocery]] [[take a walk|walk]] [[stay inside|bedroom]] <div id="black"> (if: $bed > 0 and $show > 0 and $apartment > 0 and $grocery > 0 and $walk > 0 and $bedroom > 0)[you find your worth called into question.]

<div id= "left"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/wdR0LFV.jpg" alt="limb" height="120px"> <div id="right">(set: $show to $show +1) sound bouncing off the walls of some sweaty nowhere club. your ears are ringing, your brain can't process so much sound at once. your body spins, gets shoved into the pit where limbs flail violently without intent to hit. quickly: scan every face around staring at the stage lit briefly in strobe over again in sync with guitar riff. she is none of them. you get hit. hard in the jaw. thud on the ground soundless. kind hands reach beneath your pits try to lift you up but you don't want to stand and they can't make you. wiggle free, find solid ground again and lie there for a moment before thick tread of heavy boot finds your face, smashes your nose. embrace it. the band announces the next song will be the last of the night. you want to beat the crowd. <div id= "left"> [[go back to bed|bed]] [[go to her apartment|apartment]] [[go to the grocery store|grocery]] [[take a walk|walk]] [[go home|bedroom]] <div id="black"> (if: $bed > 0 and $show > 0 and $apartment > 0 and $grocery > 0 and $walk > 0 and $bedroom > 0)[you find your worth called into question.]

<div id= "left"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/wdR0LFV.jpg" alt="limb" height="120px"> <div id="right">(set: $apartment to $apartment +1) the building door is locked. the light is not on, but the window is open. you sit on the front steps in the cold and wait for her. hours go by. there is no sign of her passing by/passing through/passing between. when you look up to her apartment again, the light is on, window shut. the curtains are drawn but you see movement through the limen. you shout and nothing happens. you are not tall enough to knock on the window. you keep waiting and nothing happens. you turn to walk away, take a step toward the horizon and it takes a step away from you. stuck, you glance back up at her second-floor apartment. the lights are off again. the window is shut. <div id= "left"> [[go to the show|show]] [[go back to bed|bed]] [[go to the grocery store|grocery]] [[take a walk|walk]] [[stay inside|bedroom]] <div id="black"> (if: $bed > 0 and $show > 0 and $apartment > 0 and $grocery > 0 and $walk > 0 and $bedroom > 0)[you find your worth called into question.]

<div id= "left"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/wdR0LFV.jpg" alt="limb" height="120px"> <div id="right">(set: $walk to $walk +1) this walk has begun for no reason and will end in no reason. the air makes you sneeze. you know there is a chance she will be outside somewhere in all this vastness and you embrace that chance, slim though it is. every building begins to look the same the further north you get. you make a turn to see something new. there is nothing new for you to see. it is all the same. every step you take, the buildings get closer together. the street narrows to an alley to a corridor to a closet. you keep walking and making turns, hoping it will open up into something beautiful. you have momentarily forgotten about your search for her. you turn one hundred and eighty degrees to find the passageway still tightening. soon it will ask you to pass through the eye of a needle. you do. <div id= "left"> [[go to the show|show]] [[go to her apartment|apartment]] [[go to the grocery store|grocery]] [[go back to bed|bed]] [[stay inside|bedroom]] <div id="black"> (if: $bed > 0 and $show > 0 and $apartment > 0 and $grocery > 0 and $walk > 0 and $bedroom > 0)[you find your worth called into question.]

<div id= "left"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/wdR0LFV.jpg" alt="limb" height="120px"> <div id="right">(set: $grocery to $grocery +1) you wander the aisles in search of her. she comes here often at this time of day. everyone is looking at you. there is nothing for you here. even though around each corner you turn you expect to see her, sitting on the shelf next to the cereal or staring at the label on a can of beans trying to figure out how much sodium is too much. you get to the produce section and pick up a bag of wilted spinach goop pooling in thin plastic. you squeeze the bag hard. it breaks. green gunk oozes out on to your hand and down your arm and it burns your skin bubbling peeling raw wretched. blood mixed in and it turns to foul brown. your muscle is exposed. the smell is horrible. you set the bag down gently. <div id= "left"> [[go to the show|show]] [[go to her apartment|apartment]] [[go back to bed|bed]] [[take a walk|walk]] [[go home|bedroom]] <div id="black"> (if: $bed > 0 and $show > 0 and $apartment > 0 and $grocery > 0 and $walk > 0 and $bedroom > 0)[you find your worth called into question.]

<div id= "left"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/wdR0LFV.jpg" alt="limb" height="120px"> <div id="right">(set: $bedroom to $bedroom +1) your eyes are fixed on a screen for thirteen hours straight. you are convinced she will appear here before you if you wait long enough. you blink on a handful of occasions throughout this time (afraid you'll miss her in the time your eyes are closed): the first few blinks are fine but then every time your eyelid moves it has to shatter through thick grime crust, shards piercing every membrane around. liquid releases. blood/aqueous humor, then tears/more blood, then sweat/more tears/more blood, more aqueous humor, all marbled, sticky snot spit dribbling, running down your face. you do not remember any single thing you looked at during this time except that none of them were her. close the laptop. <div id= "left"> [[go to the show|show]] [[go to her apartment|apartment]] [[go to the grocery store|grocery]] [[take a walk|walk]] [[go back to bed|bed]] <div id="black"> (if: $bed > 0 and $show > 0 and $apartment > 0 and $grocery > 0 and $walk > 0 and $bedroom > 0)[you find your worth called into question.]