umbilical chronicles - part one

The poor lighting in this room makes me feel dirty. The yellowed wallpaper struggles to cling to the thin wooden walls and some sitcom from the 1970s flickers on the small black and white television in the corner of the room. I can faintly hear a low electric hum from an unknown source; the pitch adds to the invisible tension pulsating in this room, slowly suffocating me. An obese woman covered in a yellow flower print dress is seated in a worn and busted baby-puke green easy chair, slowly smoking a cigarette. I'm unable to discern if she's watching the sitcom or if she's even conscious but her large, warm presence does nothing to ease my anxiety.
Stop.
Relax your shoulders.
Adjust your posture (think straight and high).
Breathe in. Hold. Now breathe out.
Reassess.
What the fuck am I doing here?
Four years ago I was the sole survivor of a car crash that took the lives of my two best (and only) friends. Ever since that horrific night I've had problems with my memory; like rolling blackouts frequent outages occur in my short-term and long-term memory banks. I slowly reach into my pocket and pull out my crumpled "reminder sheet."

Pick up 20 Oxys for Suzy (your girlfriend [a smiley face poorly drawn])...Jimmy owes us so he won't charge us anything - Love, Suzy

Okay. That helps fill in the blanks, but who the fuck is "Jimmy?" Hopefully his face will ignite my memory because I hate dealing with strangers, especially when drugs are involved.
How long have I been in this dim, dirty and decaying room?
"...Well you can tell Frankie he's sleeping on the couch!" the television speaks as laughter erupts from an audience from another decade, another time.
The clock on the wall reads 9:39 but the seconds hand is dead so apparently the clock is useless - a prop from a dead Hollywood film set.
I carefully clear my throat in an attempt to ask obese woman about "Jimmy."
"Uh, excuse me. Is, uh, Jimmy here or is he, uh, on his way or something?" I feebly ask.
Obese woman clears her throat and the sound of gravel and mucus shifting tears a hole through the tension and smoke, shaking me to the core.
"He should be here any minute, honey. Any minute now," she responds with a tone that tells me she didn't even hear my question.
I then hear the violent pitter-patter of shoes tearing up steps, pushing my pulse and anxiety to a level beyond mortal fear. My eyes rapidly (!) dart across the room...A spider web, an over flowing ash tray, a lamp shade hiding a dying bulb, a crusted TV dinner tray on dirty carpet, chaos. A door tears open.
"Jake! Let's go, man. We gotta go, like now!" a man I assume to be "Jimmy" yells. "Everything's all right, ma. I'll be back."
As I remove myself from this stained couch everything shifts into slow motion and I can't seem to eject my eyes from the image of obese woman. Jesus, her eyeballs are as black as the night's sky and horrible blue bags of flesh hang below her sockets. I'm moving towards the direction of "Jimmy's" voice but my eyes are like magnets on her black eyeballs when suddenly two white pupils slither into place and stare dead into my blue face, my petrified soul. All of this in slow motion.
She whispers, "The umbilical cord is a noose and you thought you escaped but it's too late to turn and run away. It's always too late."
Her words strike me like furious white lightning and this hellish sequence of slow motion stops and regular motion ensues and the sound of my rapid heart beats like African thunder, filling my bleeding ears and I think I hear the stranger I believe to be "Jimmy" say, "It's all fucked, man. We've gotta get the hell outta Dodge - pronto."

TO BE CONTINUED...

mc