Aphelion
It didn’t feel quite like
anything at all, which you would’ve
found terribly apt, terribly fitting in
retrospect. It was quick, a few
seconds into the floating in your
brain and usually you stay attached—
some kinda psychic tether to the
corporeal form, but of course this
time the ambulance was quick but
something else was quicker, and
you never woke up. And the world is a
very beautiful place, I think, and it
used to be more beautiful
last week.
They buried your ashes on a Thursday
and then we got drunk
which if you can somehow still see us,
I’m sure you appreciated the
irony in that.
There are brilliant poets in America
who write beautiful words still in
current year, and one of them wrote
your obituary! and your death certificate
twenty-four years early, only they
didn’t know it when they put it on TV
testimonials and side-
effects listings and such.
We were now free from the
burdens of pain! and according to
clinical trials, less than
one percent
become addicted.
What excellent news.
What an encouraging figure.
The year you died, you died with one
hundred and seven thousand
others. 10.7 million people
in America are not prescribed Oxy-
Contin in current year
but that doesn’t matter anymore
of course. Not much does.
The argument can be made, of course,
that the intention of the good
people at Purdue was not to murder
children, but merely to make a
whole lot of money, which they did,
which they did, how terribly
nice for them.
And our contemporary freelance
manufacturers, importers, and
purveyors of
fentanyl are similarly well-
intentioned, I’m sure, being slaves to
socio-economy and
such. Who can blame a man for
making a profit, after all. Who can
blame a man.
Here’s what happens:
you undo a rubber band and remove one or
more wax paper packets from the bundle.
You unfurl the bags, flick them down, and
tear them at the
middle. With thumb and forefinger, you pour
powder into a water bottle cap. From the
water bottle you draw x number of units
into the set, then gently squeeze it onto
the powder in the cap. You
pull the plunger out and stir it up. Add
pinch of cigarette filter. Apply needle tip.
Draw.
Shake.
Squeeze.
Make a fist. Find a vein.
Lance it. Push.
Then black. That’s it. No sound, no fury. No
light. No tunnel. Your life does
not flash. No tears, no cry. That’s how you
actually die from an opioid
overdose.
You’re there, putting the shot in, antici-
pating, then
nothing.
An observer would see your breath go
shallow. Your eyes may close, they may
not. Breath slows and first the lips turn,
then the rest. But someone
somewhere made a lot of
money. Someone somewhere
bought a picasso. Someone
somewhere has never administered
narcan. Someone is in charge of the
Food and Drug Admistration and someone
runs the DEA.
Someone runs the department of
corrections and someone has a
badge and a stick. Someone has five
fresh rigs in a bag. Someone has
stock options. Some cars cost
a half a million dollars, do you
believe that, it’s true. Some
country clubs are very competitive.
So someone has to make all
this work. Someone very important
owns a chain of treatment centers. Someone very important needs you. Someone very important needs me.
Very important people need
our help. It’s been arranged,
bought, and
borrowed against.
Believe that.
It seems terribly
important to someone
terribly important that
we do this. All of us.
It seems terribly important
that we all
die.
D. B. DEVILLIERS 