With proud shoulders he leaves the small motel room he has called home for the past year. The small southern town has revealed it has very little for him, but as it is for many young men terrified of change there is a girl.

It has been a week since he has seen Sarah. She has made it clear that she has absolutely no desire to see him again any time soon, but he insists to himself that there is something different about tonight, that there is something in the air. The small voice in the back of his head knows that it is desperation, but even that small voice doesn't have the heart to speak more than a whisper.

It doesn't take long for him to reach his car, but to turn his keys, to leave the motel parking area: this takes effort. This takes time.

As he coasts his car toward downtown he frantically searches simultaneously for a cigarette and the right music selection. He finds one of his remaining camel lights, and he finds the Police's "Outlandos d' Amour," and after a couple of minutes the nausea really is almost gone.

It empowers itself vehemently, the nausea, when Sarah's restaurant's tacky neon sign is in sight. The small voice in his head grows louder.

"Go somewhere else. Go anywhere else!"

He decides that he must search for meaning, not in the lips that refuse him, but in the bar across the street. He imagines there must be lips there thirsty for more than shots of Llager and Red bull, for more than guys in Tommy Hillfigger t-shirts and gold chains. Inside this bar there just has to be one pair of lips thirsty for a young artist in a tie and glasses that make him look sort of like Peter Sellers.

There is no time put to waste walking into this establishment. There is no time to lose, for if he doesn't find his treasure here in the next forty-five minutes Sarah will be off work. The phone calls will begin. The effeminate tears of a subhuman faggot, or still worse, and more true the tears of a worthless, narcissistic pervert. The tears of a clown. The tears really are just a joke to everyone else.

His thoughts seem to intensify the more he asks for "Another scotch on the rocks." The people around him become more and more cruel and less and less powerful. He has said nothing to everyone except for the bartender, and as silence grows longer so does the absurdity. So does that once studied existentialist viewpoint on life.

***

When he wakes up the next morning, an hour and a half late for work, he scratches his head. He is wondering how he got home. He decides he must have just driven home from that... from that bar, but wait... There was a party. Had that been a dream?

He picks up his cell phone, and much to his chagrin there have been thirty-seven outgoing calls, all to her. He looks back to his bed, and almost shocks himself to a fall, staggering and catching himself. He is forced to realize he had not gone through his desperation alone.

He doesn't even have a name, not one thing about this slumbering body seems familiar, not one Goddamn thing. He's getting anxious, he's wondering what to do. Wake her? Run?

Someone is knocking at the door. This is too much, he's in over his head.

The girl in the bed wakes up.

"Who is at the door?" She asks quietly.

Before he can respond by citing ignorance...

"Police! Open up!"

Sweet Christ, it's the police! What happened last night? What has he done? He quickly opens the door, not really feeling like he has any other option.

As soon as the two officers walk in he hears the gunshots. His one night stand has just laid out two officers of the law.

"Come on Damon, we have to get out of here." She suggests.

The crazy bitch doesn't even seem remotely distracted. He can tell she's killed before, but who?

She takes his hand and leads him to his parking spot where an Aston Martin DB7, a 1968 model, replaces his old Volvo.

"Who does this belong to?" He wants to know.

"I was afraid of this." She says. "They drugged you, you don't have any idea who I am do you?" She asks as she places the keys gently into the ignition.

"You're a cop killer. I know that." He says, fumbling for a seat belt.

"Those weren't cops, those were two of the guys they hired to kill you."

"Who?"

"Sarah's parents. They blame you for her death. I know you were set-up. Sarah was killed by the same dirt-bag that killed my husband."

He feels like he did the first time he tried psycho tropic mushrooms. Reality isn't processing anymore, he's panicking, he's passing out.

***

He opens his eyes and realizes this isn't his bed. The song "Party Girl." by Elvis Costello and the Attractions is playing as if from nowhere. His eyes are focusing.

There is a middle aged couple bound and gagged on the divan facing this bed.

"The victims parents, Damon." He hears.

"Well one of the victims, I guess there has been what? About three counting that little blonde number you picked up?" The voice continues.

He is remembering this David Cronenburg flick called "Videodrome," where a young James Woods is drugged with some sort of cancerous radio wave sent by a video transmission. He remembers the chick from Blondie is in it. He doesn't remember how he got into this room. He doesn't remember any "victims."

He remembers this dream he had as a child: In the dream his father was getting married to a wicked queen. The wicked queen said "I do." then "I'm going to kill your pet rabbit." He remembers believing that dream was going to come true for a long time. He wondered if dreams were like reality when you are in them.

He is still staring at this couple, now realizing they are his assumed to be dead ex-girlfriend's parents. They both look freaked. He still cannot see a face to connect with that now silent accusing voice.

"Did I bound and gag you?" He asks.

They show no sign of response.

"Stomp once for yes, twice for no." He implores.

Still no response.

What choice does he have? That is what he is thinking. Treat it like it's some gritty cigarette smoking Wal-Mart 5 dollar bin movie starring Dennis Leary.

"I'm not in this room, I'm in your head."

The voice is overpowering now.

"This is hallucinatory, a big mind game see. We used you to kill the girl, then we got used to it. We got into it. We're not big moralists, but we're gonna give you a chance. Be switched on, or be switched off."

This is insanity. He's thinking this just might be schizophrenia.

"Are you going to play ball, are you going to embrace the mindlessness, be useful in the way we want? Or are you gonna make waves? Force us to get less use out of you, and leave you to be a drone twenty-four-seven?"

He feels like he is back in his high school spanish class, and he doesn't know one word of this God-forsaken language. He is unprepared and uncomfortable.

He starts to talk to the voice, you know, in his mind. Like he is saying a prayer.

"Where is Sarah?" He wonders.

"The woman you loved? She doesn't love you I am sorry to say. You fell for a patsy. No will of her own, she's working for the other side. We'd explain, tell you of the war going on, but you are a weapon, and weapons can't have their souls spoiled by petty things like cohesive truth, they need strong ethical fiber, they need an epoch, they need a Bible."

He's feeling the rush again.

He's being switched off.

***

In a moment he is back. Now in a graveyard, over her grave. He has a walkman on, and is listening to "Mellow Yellow," as sung by Donavon.

Sarah is gone, and he can't be anything but a true madman now. How do you formulate a plan when they are in your head? He thinks he knows how it feels to be the wolf man.

"You've probably known how that feels for a while now." The voice says, obviously sensing his misconception of time.

"Leave the walkman on, have a last cigarette. There is one in your right jacket pocket, and when you are through go ahead and make peace with your maker."

He doesn't hear the voice again. The cigarette seems to burn quickly, and he wonders where he should go from here, curious as if to whether or not he should bother watching his step.

He hears footsteps behind him.

It's Sarah. She begins to speak:

"I try to keep my personal life away from father's experiments, but I hated you for making me feel guilty, for making me feel odd and strange. I hate you for making me give two shits when I never respected you. You are a drunk, and you are a psychotic, and that shames me Damon. I told Papa to go ahead, and you were useful, and I'm proud of you for that. I've got to kill you, but I'm doing it myself see? I could have let Papa do it and you never would have died not loving me, but the thought of that disgusts me now. I'm not even really sure why."

With her intense delivery of a farewell dialogue she pulls out a shiny .44 and sets in motion a conspiracy that will never be understood. Perhaps he is dead now, but couldn't tell what he saw, never getting to explain he never really loved her in the first place.

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