House of Leaves - Page 49

“You okay, Truant?” Lude asked.

But I saw a strange glimmer everywhere, confined to the sharp oscillations of yellow and blue, as if my retinal view suddenly included along with the reflective blessings of light, an unearthly collusion with scent and sound, registering all possibilities of harm, every threat, every move, even with all that grinning and meeting and din.

A thousand and one possible claws.

Of course, Lude didn’t see it. He was blind. Maybe even right. We drove down Sunset and soon veered south into the flats. A party somewhere. An important gathering of E heads and coke heads. Lude would never feel how “empty hallways long past midnight” could slice inside of you, though I’m not so sure he wasn’t sliced up just the same. Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the “Hey I’m bleeding” part. To feel though, you have to care and as we walked out onto the blue-lit patio and discovered a motorcycle sputtering up oil and bubbles from the bottom of the pool while on the diving board two men shoved flakes of ice up a woman’s bleeding nostrils, her shirt off, her bra nearly transparent, I know that Lude would never care much about the dead.

And maybe he was right.
Maybe some things are best left untouched.

Of course he didn’t know the dead like I did. And so when he absconded with a bottle of Jack from the kitchen, I did my best to join him. Obliterate my own cavities and graves.
(obliterate my own gravities and caves)

But come morning, despite my headache and the vomit on my shirt, I knew I’d failed.

Inside me, a long dark hallway already caressed the other music of a single word, and what’s worse, despite the amazements of chemicals, continued to grow.