I became that moment in a Greek tragedy, where the chorus sings the hero's fall. I became Romeo shouting at the night sky, "defy you stars". I became every song ever sung by Simon & Garfunkel, Counting Crows, and Janis Joplin. I became Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost. I became Jack & Coke. Already a mess, I became a humongous one. My coping mechanisms were well-known, and, yes, many were used—a cocktail of Michael Jackson's Jesus-Juice, pain pills, hatred, tears, and rage. In a cacophony of fury and despair, I bursted out the front door and onto the street and, forsaking the motorized contraptions of lesser gods, I ran. With only one arm to swing and an awkward gate, I became Cinderella with one shoe, dashing down the street too late for her ball. I ran to nowhere and everywhere at once. …show more content…
I dropped over the hill behind the shopping center, crunched through the weeds, found the sidewalk again and kept running. Through the alleys, the side streets, the service roads, until shiny black waters glimmered beneath the moonlight. Winded, wheezing, dizzy, I staggered to the river's edge and drew a deep breath. In the utter despair of screeching violin music and circling buzzards, the thought crossed my mind of tossing my mangled carcass into the swift waters, where at last I'd take my refuge with the bones of Jimmy Hoffa and the Burka Woman from the Grassy