Free House of Cabal Volume One: Eden by Wesley McCraw

special.
    A widescreen TV materializes, and because I’m
watching normal television, vertical black bars on the sides of the
screen make the picture square again. A news program reports that a
Dutch firework factory explosion killed twenty-three and injured
nine hundred fifty in the town of Enschede. In all, 1,250 people
were left homeless. Just numbers. I'm numb to it all. Commercials
flip by as I channel surf. My breath isn’t fresh enough. I’m not
sexy because I don’t have the right pair of jeans. My life is
drudgery; alcohol will make it bliss. Then the news comes back on
to inform me of my fears: everyone and everything, especially black
men and the occasional Hispanic.
    You tell me in the future it will be Muslims.
You poke at a little screen in your hand and Google, "May 15, 2000
Enschede." The results come up. A firework disaster happened on
this date in Enschede, Netherlands. A YouTube video shows the
explosion. This is all happening somehow, but why come back to this
moment in history?
    I ask if I can see your phone. Can you
actually get the Internet on that thing? And what is YouTube?
    You say it's best to focus on the here and
now. You believe an inciting event will soon change everything in
my life. Before that happens, my ordinary world must be
established. Time to get to work.
    You creep around me. My face, seeing it
straight on for the first time, reminds you of the halo effect.
What’s the halo effect? I ask you. And you explain that my
attractiveness causes people to assume positive traits: that I’m
intelligent, kind, trustworthy, a natural leader, successful in
relationships, a skilled lover. Because of my looks, people create
a positive narrative. They assume I’m happy.
    It hurts you to remember my future self. In
fifteen years, I won’t look so handsome. In just fifteen years, my
youth will be gone forever. It strikes you that this projected
self-image might be fictional. Maybe this is only how I’d like to
remember myself.
    Think whatever you want, Chuck. I don’t have
to prove myself to you. I’m not the one not really here.
    I click off the TV. The flashing images have
dulled my senses. I should go back to the media deprivation of my
childhood. I was happier back then.
    My mostly dark apartment clarifies. Near an
empty fireplace, a lamp illuminates a maze, ornately framed and
professionally hung over the mantle. The maze brims with intricate
art, like an ancient map created when the world was flat. In the
corner is my signature, the two Ts of Everett ending inside the G
of Grimes.
    You think it's impressive but also mannered
and overwhelming, as if made by someone with OCD and too much free
time.
    As a child, all I did was draw mazes and
solve puzzles and mind teasers. I couldn’t get enough. Now it’s
barely a hobby.
    Photos of my family and friends line the
mantle. Among boring studio photos, a stand-out candid one shows my
girlfriend Carrie and me on an Oregon beach near Seaside. She’s
salon beautiful, while my red hair is frizzed out from the wind.
This was before we had sex, probably a year into our relationship.
Now I have my wavy hair cut short to make it easier to care for.
Carrie says it makes me look more GQ; she thinks the more GQ you
look, the better person you are. I have to get it cut every three
weeks or she complains. I secretly judge her and never say anything
critical to her face. Everyone says we’re in love.
    I want the TV back on, so I don’t have to be
alone with my thoughts. Instead I pull off my pajama bottoms and
grab a syringe from the end table. I pull the plunger out to the 1
cc mark, stab the syringe into a vial, and press out the air. I
hold the vial close to my face and suction out one ML of liquid.
After giving the syringe a tap, I stab it into my leg and slowly
push the contents into my thigh.
    I've never given myself a shot in front of
someone before. I trust you. Being vulnerable with you isn't a
risk.
    You read the vial: a prescription