oxy music
I realise my mistake at around 3am, when my limbs are starched flat on the bed but in my head sets off a cut, sparking wire that’s jumping around and making my heart thump and stop. Netflix is still autoplaying It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the episode is The Gang Beats Boggs, and I feel heavyheaded for the first time in days which is a small slice of bliss so for a few minutes I ignore the fuckup and try to smile and sink. At around 3:15 I call 111 and they call the paramedics immediately after I state my body weight and the dose that I now realise I took. The operator has a strong Essex accent and is trying to reprimand me but it’s hard, probably, because I’m meandering inbetween confused wakefulness and a sort of fugue state. I don’t know when the ambulance arrives but I know I don’t want to wake the others up so I put on trousers, somehow, and get from here to downstairs in a way that’s since escaped me, and I’ve forgotten my keys but haven’t realised it yet but I do remember thinking that maybe the nicotine from my vape will keep me awake, so they find me slouched on the pavement with a vape in my mouth. No identification, and though I know who I am, for a few minutes I can only think of my mum’s last name, which is not the same as mine, and maybe this was a ploy to escape my medical history but I really don’t think it was.
It’s clearer from here on out. I call my friend who’s on Tokyo time and they make her stay on the line with me. The sun has risen, I’m sitting in the back of the ambulance but we haven’t gone anywhere and it finally dawns on me that they’re viewing this as a suicide attempt, which it steadfastly wasn’t, and my previous crying and pleas of let me go back in, I just want to go home, I just want to finally sleep, weren’t helping my case. I make my first reasonable request of the night: a bottle of water, which I crush in front of the two paramedics so quickly that I can’t help but wonder if they now have me pegged as an alcoholic as well as a pillhead by virtue of my lightning speed chugging abilities. Either way, there’s not much more I can do. I go back in. It’s half past 6 and she’s leaving for work. I turn on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia; the episode is Charlie Work. A classic.