Hooked on a Feeling

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

That's what I keep telling myself. But things have changed a lot. Maybe more than we're willing to admit. I know I've changed. I tried not to.

The more I think about what happened, the less I know. Jackie. Jackie's girlfriend. Ayaz. The videotape. The meteor. Maybe I'm cursed. Maybe not.

I had a dream last night. In the dream, I stuffed a fistful of hundred dollar bills into a pregnant woman's mouth. The sound of the bills rumpling and crinkling was as loud as her muffled groaning. The total value of the bills was easily in the thousands. The pregnant woman's face contorted into a mask of ecstatic bliss as the money crunched between her teeth.

The human mouth is horribly unsuited to masticating dollar bills. They crumple and become thick with saliva, but they never truly become easy to swallow. The pregnant woman knew this.

Just then, I woke up from the dream. I was soaking wet with sweat and the bedsheets clung to my body. The humidity of the summer night was unbearable.

I sat down on the couch. I crudely rolled a joint out of an ATM receipt and some very old marijuana that I had stashed in a drawer. The TV was on, and blaring. I wasn't sure if I had just turned it on or if maybe I had left it on all night. I poured a glass of peppermint schnapps.

I thought about the pregnant woman again. And the hundred dollar bills. What a strange dream.

I smoked a few more joints. Some burned quickly. The good ones burned slowly. The room was hazy with smoke and I polished off the rest of the bottle of peppermint schnapps. My hands were sticky. Schnapps. I stood up quickly to turn off the TV. I lost my balance and fell back down onto the couch. The room was spinning.

I struggled, staggering across the room and up the stairs to my bedroom. Right before I laid my head down to rest, I shoved another handful of hundred dollars bills into the pregnant woman's mouth. It's expensive, but it works.