Image Credit: club Bow, NYC (now closed) from Daily Details
Locals call him Red-Eye, always off a midnight flight – he walks crisp in his business suit and blown-back hair – he’s a wind-up doll in jet lag limbo, 30 kilogram bags hanging under his juiced-wide-open eyes, like a corpse revived by witchcraft.
On Red-Eye’s arm, always the bloodshot princess from a dead-beat town, and always her mascara bleeding down her cheeks, following the tear tracks left by mistakes – she’s just what he needs to bring him down and hanging with a dead man fuels her losing streak.
From the trendy clubs they stumble into the street, dumbed down from lack of sleep, nerve endings twitching, can’t decide where to go, what to do, what words to speak, and what are words, anyway? They switch to touch at Red-Eye’s place and toss and tangle on sweaty sheets.
They wake to a world hanging on by a thread, drink their coffee on a balcony overlooking the ruins, take stock of the remains of their minds – the princess shrugs, offers Red-Eye a couple uppers and they smoke their French cigarettes, one eye on Ukraine, the other on Wall Street.
Red-Eye gives Bloodshot the boot, nothing personal, yet the princess, always blindsided by notions of permanence, snatches up her clothes and goes – He cuts himself shaving, She cuts her lip tripping after a cab, and they fumble for mirrors in the bloody panic.
Ripples in water and broken glass flash fragments of their faces, a disco ball loosed and spinning anger and tears like a Jackson Pollock, and the sounds from their mouths become echoes of uncertainty reverberating off the world’s walls.
A discontinuity diverts their scream waves, drops them straight down to gray, and all they need is a little 4-FPP, just a low dose pip to twist the kaleidoscope, intensify the hues of the workday – yeah, it’s the candy, it’s the flip, and we a’ight ‘til the light turns red.
Locals spotted Red-Eye fresh off a midnight flight reeking of urban decay, and on his arm was Bloodshot, her mind troubled by a down trip – Do you think we should crash, Red-Eye? – Fuck no, girl, he said. We’ll have plenty of time to sleep when we’re dead.
Fin
Click here for more on prompt “SS2 #7 – too many late nights” from other Sunday Scribblings participants
This drug-free trippin’ was fueled by 152 instrumental techno pops by Horser01
The Essence of a Thing 
You may propose this as fiction but it’s close to the reality I see in my neighbourhood… just rendered more entertaining by your words.
Clever, that, and all the more amusing because it’s real! In the process of coming up with the 7th paragraph, I learned the wealthy, young elite of London have ditched cocaine for Ketamine, and in the States they’re revisiting ludes. Caffeine queen that I am, I’m thinking a sedative- hallucinogenic/hypnotic is the absolute last thing I’d ingest for a “good” time!
Highly reflective and polished prose Miss A. And far more than a mere prompt..
Thank you for sayin’, Mister – I sure did try hard enough at trying hard enough on this one. The first two paragraphs rolled out during a happy hour, you know, when my evil twin was blanked, and then I couldn’t regain that easy-rolling feel >:-(
What are words indeed..in the right hands..magic and gold (there’s always eye drops to wash the red away ;) x
That’s right, dear J – I got some Murine the other day so I’d be ready for the next late-night tussle with words – I’m sure there’ll be one sooner or later – meanwhile you crank out tall blocks of gold at least twice per week – good thing you’ve got a pack of the Queen of Hearts’ cards guarding them : )
I loved your clipped words and the jumpyness of this piece. Who are we to judge when life is so short. Sad hopeless lives and yet they look at us with scorn too.
Thank you, OE – your recaps are always astute. And excellent point you make, as well – since the beginning of time in the human realm, it has always come down to Us vs. Them and, if you boil off all the gut-hating from what each side says, there’s usually a bit of validity!
Pingback: Anonymous·
Ah, a pingback from http://www.wordpress-blogs.net/post/320057/euclidean-trippin …oh those dubious crawlers that littereth the asphalt after a rain and maketh the air to stink…