The pain and nausea hit me in waves, confusing me, making the world ripple. I rise without waking Karen and head to the bathroom. I swallow the opiates with tap water. The water in the small glass is still cloudy with air bubbles and I start to think. I think of my cowardice, I think of my milquetoast attitude at the thought of dying. I'm going to leave the planet and all it's blessings and here I am worrying about what others might feel. Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. After all was said and done, my family--well family is family.

    I hear the buzzing of a fly and empathize with the insect. A short life is too short by half, I think to myself. I rub my eyeballs, trying to get at the gremlin behind them. No dice. I sit on the cool tiles of the floor waiting for the drugs to do their magic dance with my brain. The nausea passes and the pain subsides, but I can't escape the thought that I'm miserable. I'm miserable and may remain so 'till the day I die. It was a very real and infuriating prospect. With great reluctance I pick my dying **** off the cold floor and pad softly back the bedroom. Karen is still asleep, her delicate lips open, snoring slightly. She's perfect, I decide. As perfect as they day we met, more in fact. I could be anywhere else in the world right now. I could be eating sushi off a nude models breasts in Singapore or wrestling swimsuit models covered in KY in Mexico. But, in the end, I'm here. This is where all my good memories come from, this is the place where my happiness was born. True happiness, that is. The kind that takes no effort, no moxie. The kind that gives and gives and is inexhaustible.

    I continue to watch her sleep. And I think to myself, she is life. She is bliss, joy. She has given me so much and I...  I was above her now. I don't remember making the trip but here I am, hovering over her.  My guts gurgled and turned and twisted. My palms were slick. In my right hand was a pair of scissors that I held tightly. Too tightly, white-knuckled tight. Where did I get these?  Why did I pick them up. I shake my head, clearing cobwebs, hoping that when I open them again, all will be well. But its not. They they are, sharp and ready.  I can take being a hero, I can take being a killer in a gay bar, so long as they remain in my diseased brain. But this? This I cannot take. I suppose slipping into darkness is a blessing that would bypass me. This is not protecting my family, this is not safe for them. I'm not safe. I turn on my heels and go downstairs to my study, my 'man cave' as Karen dubbed it. I open the closet, my breathing playing hell with my headache. I roll through the combination of the floor-bolted safe with slimy hands, trembling hands. From inside I pull out a large envelope stuffed with seven thousand dollar bundles of 'just-in-case' money. I had had it. Kill me God, but leave them alone. Please God, don't let me hurt them.

    I put on a rumpled suit out of the hamper in the laundry room, a pair of old shoes that were meant for Goodwill.  **** them, in this moment, I was needy. In the early morning hours before the sun intruded on the dark the house was silent. Yet, it wasn't still. The walls throbbed anxiously as I passed them. My wallet was upstairs, but I decided to leave it. Cash spoke when papers couldn't. I'd make do, to protect them. In the foyer sat a bundle of suitcases, a monument to the vacation that almost was. A monolith of could-of-beens. I hoped they would still take the trip. I hoped they would forgive me and understand my decision. For a moment my hand sat on the knob of the front door, reluctant. I should say goodbye to the kids, but if they woke mid-kiss, mid-sappy sentence I wouldn't have the strength to leave them. I'd stay. I'd stay and then we'd all go, together. It was hurting me to leave, but we'd all die if i stayed I rationalized. Or perhaps, in my own selfish way I was giving myself permission to party hard and leave a handsome corpse.

    With my mind made up, I turned the knob and opened the door and there I was on all fours looking up at myself, dressed like a 50's greaser. I stood in shock as the other me rose to his feet and stuck out his hand.

    "Name's Id. Hello, me," he spoke with my voice, but it was hideous, strained, mean.

    "What the ****?" I blurted out.

    "You said it, ****. You ready? We have places to see and people to do," he raised his hand in salute and there were the scissors.

    "No, no. I know what you are. I've been here before. I'll wake up soon and your creepy **** will be just another bad dream."

    "You don't know ****, slick. You don't have time to sleep. And me being a dream, huh? You must be as twisted as a witches' nipple to dream me up. Get your keys, hoss, we're taking the bike. Leave the gas guzzler for the bitch and brats."

    "**** you," I spat through gnashing teeth.

    "You'd probably get off on that, wouldn't ya?"

    He left my threshold and disappeared around the corner. I closed the door behind me, it shut with a click. I'd wake up soon, I thought.  I have had vivid dreams before, enough to have been fooled over and over again. This time, however, I was aware of it. I won't be duped again. Id wasn't in the garage. He had floated back into the ether, hopefully. A side effect of a side effect finally forgotten. I walked the bike out of the garage and down the drive way. I popped the kickstand and manually closed the garage door. I walked the bike down a few houses then turned the key.  But I hadn't brought the key out of the house, had I? Dreams are like that, I guess. The Kawasaki faux-Indian growled in response. I kicked open the clutch and sped away, riding away from what I loved most, lamenting the goodbyes that could have been, and regretting that I was ever born.

    At the first stop sign I braked a little too hard, and skidded turning the back wheel. Not a wipe-out, but not cool either. I felt something slam against my back. I was wearing a back pack. This keeps getting better and better. Hands curled around my waist and I froze. What now?

    "Red means stop, dildo. Or did ya forget that?" It was Id again, his voice so familiar but also ugly, so goddamned ugly.

   I ignored him and rode on. I busied myself with thoughts of my destination. Where would I go? What would I do once I got there? Mental masturbation, my old man called it. 'Why spend time worrying about what to do when you could just as easily do it?' Not poetry, but dad.

    "Hey Tigger," Id called out over the rumbling using a childhood nickname I hadn't heard in twenty years. I ignored him, he persisted anyway, "Hey Tiggs, d'ya think that maybe you really wanna kill the old ball and chain? Oh, don't forget the kids, damn welfare recipients. Never enough for them, is it?"

    "Shut it."

    "Well, if anyone knows you its me. Remember when we took that trip to Disney? And the plane did the Lindy-hop at forty thousand? Do you remember what you wished for, Tiggs?"

    "..."

    "Well, I do. You were happy to die then, as long as they all went with--"

    I skidded to a stop, on the shoulder of a access road not bothering to look back at him, "Get off. Can't I have a dream where I do something I enjoy? Go stick your dick in a hand grenade and leave me be!"

    "Such language! Ha!  So are you telling me you haven't been enjoying the show? I mean I put a lot of work in making you happy. Reading the wrinkles in your brain, finding the right flick to show ya. Ingrate."

   "You?"

    "Yeah, me... Or maybe, you. See, I'm gonna tell you how it is from now on. I'm not gonna die without doing some dirt first. Or rather you're not. This what you've always wanted, all the fun, none of the jail,"  he giggled, childlike.

    "**** You! You're a cancer dream, ****! Nothing more than an angry cancer induced nightmare."

    "You wish. Oh, party time."

   I turned to him and he was gone, instead a state police cruiser was pulling in behind me, lights on but no siren. Dust crackled beneath its wheels. I didn't have my wallet or registration or insurance paperwork. One hell of a shitty dream, thanks Id. The squad car was intimidating enough, but the size of the man who exited was more still. He sauntered over to me, glared down at me through dark Ray-Ban's.

    "Licence and Registration, please," he demanded in the form of a request.

    "Well--" I muttered.

    Do it Tiggs. Do it.

    "Sir, have you been drinking?"

    Let's make sausage, Tigger. Let's carve some bacon off his back..." he whispered, sibilant as a serpent.

   "Sir, I need you to shut the bike off and step over here."

    I complied, or rather I simply gave in. Perhaps it's better to cave when the odds were insurmountable. How could you beat yourself?

   After the ninth or tenth time the scissors were to slick to hold onto, I let go. They dangled from his neck as he became a living, or perhaps dying, fountain. He thrashed and clawed at me, knocking over my bike. He tried to scream but only gargled. Id was again on all fours, his hair greased, his leather jacket shining in the sun.

    "Man, oh, man that was **** nice! Nice moves, Tiggs. Ouch. He's gonna feel that in hell. Ha! Yikes," he pretended to shiver.

   "Happy? Can I wake up now? I have somewhere I gotta be this morning."

   "Well, hoss, they way old Id sees it is you have two choices. The hard one and the **** easy one. One: you spend the next few weeks in jail only to be released in a Ziploc. Or, Tigger, now listen close. Or, you get on that bike and ride, babe. Your roll, daddy."

    How much longer could this dream last? I said **** it, loaded the statey in his cruiser, took his gun, and got the hell out of Dodge. No sense in waiting to wake up. Dreams went on with or without you.

   "You got that right, my man. I'm tired of living this American dream, Tiggs. Now we can wake up in a few weeks or we can wake up now. I say now Tiggs, how 'bout you?"

   "Now's fine," I answered, not looking back, but feeling his weight, my weight, against my spine. 

   "I was speaking metaphorically, you square. You are awake, and I'm no dream. Remember that."

   We didn't speak again for miles, dark turned to day and back to night. And still I hadn't woken up. I pinched myself and it hurt. I touched things and felt them. Only Id seemed ephemeral. And only he had the answers.