A Quick Swim

The whole apartment smelled of propane and I was getting headaches. We didn't have anything that used propane and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I kept toying with the idea of lighting a match but didn't want to risk burning my goddamned face off. I was sort of fond of it.

So I sat at the computer and tried to write. I was hoping for some Delphic masterwork, some new Oz with creatures and characters unearthly. Maybe even a new breed of prose. The propane might even earn me a bestseller, or a bit of critical acclaim. I sat at the computer with a swirling headache, staring, and threw up in my lap.

The puke startled me from my daze and dizzy I leaped up and backward in my chair and spilled the fucking mess all over my chest, neck, face, and floor. The smell attacked me as I tried to get my shit together and get up and my abdomen kept tightening and releasing, fighting fucking desperately to let more out.

Nothing came. The dry heaves.

I got to my knees but my headache and some rush of blood prevented me from getting any further than that. I knelt on the floor of my apartment, soaked in and staring at pinks, oranges, bits, pieces, and puddles. The smell. My eyes watered and my head pounded harder. I moved myself a little forward and my knee slipped. My right half hit the floor and a shot from my hip jolted through me.

I cried out in slurred shock. I was choking on the smell. The sight. The headache. I crawled out, leaving behind me a path of hand prints and droplets across the carpet. I crawled over to the front door.

Air. I just need...air.

I got my hand on the door knob, and my hand, still wet slipped around it and I fell back to the carpet. The world was a haze. All of the colors melded together and I knew this was propane poisoning, or something like that. The door opened fast and hard and hit me square in the face as I faded out.

Suddenly I was awake again and my face was pounding.

"Fuck!"

I rolled over on my back and my face was warmer. I could taste copper now in the sting of the puke. Blood. I opened my eyes and saw Marie staring in horror at me, the carpet. The mess.

"What the fuck?" she asked.