The Summer I Died

by Ryan C. Thomas

I am eroding. But this is a far better alternative than the dreams of that summer.

Goddamn son of a bitch, how did he expect me to get a twelve pack under my shirt? Just walk out and say I was pregnant or something?

Shit. In my book, listening to a drunk get philosophical is on par with rolling down a hill in a barrel full of nails. You get dizzy, your insides shriek with stabbing pain, and you end up someplace lower than where you started.

I guess some problems were too big to fix and you just hoped they would take care of themselves.

The bullet had gone through dead center, a bit below Tooth’s hole. I didn’t tell him I had pictured the can as a man’s head when I shot, though I doubt he would have given a shit. Then again, maybe I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to hear myself admit it.

If I’d only known what was going to happen next I would have taken the gun from Tooth and put bullets in both our brains.

I was a piss-drenched child looking at the boogey man.

Tooth started screaming. I started screaming. We all screamed. We all flailed. We were in Hell.

The human brain has a difficult time rationalizing the absurd. It’s like watching aliens land in your backyard and take a dip in your pool. You think, “This is a dream, any moment now I’ll wake up.” And then you do wake up. And you laugh about it and go back to sleep. Only we weren’t waking up.