Angel Dust by Terry Kuder III (best non fiction books to read .txt) 📖

1

Shaving

Placing down the can, I used my other palm to clear the fog from the mirror. I switched on the fan and sighed. I ran my fingertips across the scruffiness on my chin. The room's heat made the sweat excrete from the pores I wasn't even aware of. Thus far, I hadn't even looked into the mirror. I didn't want to see my face. My dreadful face. My withered face. I knew where the lines would be: two across my forehead, two descending from the corners of my mouth, two cutting across my cheeks, and two under my eyes. I knew the places as if I knew my hand except that I knew my face a little more than my hand. I slid my tongue over my dry lips, wetting them. The corners of my mouth twitched with anxiety; with depression. I took my hand and pulled back the hair that had fallen into my face. The dampness of it glued it to my scalp, making sure not to fall into my face soon. I slowly placed my hands on the counter, looking into the drain of the sink. Turning on the faucet, I allowed the water to heat up, pulling the stopper up to let it fill up. I balanced the hot and cold knobs making sure not to scold myself. Then again, did I really care?
I tilted my head up, closing my eyes, as the sound of the water filled my head. Her face flashed before my lids and I opened them quickly. I took a deep breath before looking into the reflection that I was so well accustomed to making sure to avoid my face. The towel around my waste made me look more muscular than I really was. At any other time, I would have been proud of that, but not today. Not today. In fact, not ever again. I envisioned myself growing to be a slob sitting on the couch and letting my semi-muscular stomach become a huge belly while I used the remote to flip the channels, never finding anything to truly watch. I was pretty sure I was crazy, but I never thought too much on the topic. Instead, I thought about other things. Things that I found to be important. Things that I wish I would forget. Things that had brought me to this point.
The mirror fogged up and I wiped it down again. Losing my train of thought, the water brimmed over and began spilling onto the floor. I turned off the knobs before it became too much of a mess for me to care. I sighed again as I stared into the sink. The ripples drew my attention and I was amazed by how quickly I lost my train of thought. I began pondering how simple things could cause ripples. They always started out small. Always. But, much like the water's ripples, they grew into proportions that would only fade when there was nowhere else to go. A minute had passed and not a sound could be heard except for my sweat dripping into the sink. Such thoughts. Such thoughts made me want to be stupid. Made me want to harm myself and the body that I didn't care about anymore. I tried caring though. I tried for awhile, but could only muster up the strength to sigh and then give up. Today was such an occasion.
I heard the sink draining and realized that I was pushing down the stopper. I didn't even remember doing this. In fact, I didn't remember why I was doing it until the water on the floor touched my feet. The sink was too full and I needed to drain it. Why couldn't I remember thinking this though? How did my body automatically react without me so much as sending a single wavelength from my brain to my arm? Yet another thing I would never truly understand. But, again, did it really matter? I picked up the can and pushed the top button down. It secreted a white lather twisting to the top like whip cream does. Placing the can down, I began to put the lather on my face. I spread it over my cheeks, under my nose, on my chin, on my neck, and close to my ears. I placed my hand in the water to clean off the remainder that couldn't be used.
I finally looked up and gazed into my eyes. As pitiful as my face was, it was real eyes that told the real story. I hadn't gotten any real sleep in the past three weeks now. My eyelids drooped over the midsection of my eyes. I didn't even care enough to open my eyes all the way. It looked as if I was high, but this wasn't the case. My height had been dropped months ago. When I fell, the shock threw me back some and I couldn't quite clear my head since then. I was both surprised and disappointed that I had survived the fall. The surprise was that I had actually fallen. Two words. Two words was all it took and that cloud dissipated. The words echoed in my head, of course. I never wanted to repeat the words, but due to the lack of any educated thoughts, my brain was pretty much empty and the echoes went on and on and on incessantly. It was then that the disappointment sunk in. It wasn't a slow absorption either. Not like a sponge being used to clean up a mess, but more like a battle ship that was just hit with a torpedo. I was the captain who knew there was nothing I could do, so I just sat in my captain's chair as the water rose up to my ankles then to my knees, up my chest, around my neck and finally through my nostrils. I didn't remember much after that, but when I awoke, I cursed myself. I cursed myself for still being alive; for surviving the fall, the drowning. It was a sad thought, but then again, so were the two words. So were the unanswered phone calls and the lack of reply when I told her I loved her. So were the many promises that seemed to be broken. So were the scars that stained my heart blue instead of red. So were the many things that I saw after the facts. All of this was a sad sad thought. So was being alive.
I opened the top drawer on my right to grab my razor. Closing the drawer, I held up the blade in front of my face. It shined brightly as if asking to be used. Everything went silent again except for my heavy breathing. So many sad thoughts. So many. I took a deep breath. What was the best way to approach this? Without thinking, I started on my left side, covering the razor in the white lather. It touched my face with a cooling sensation as I drew it down to the bottom of my jaw line. I took it from my face, checking to see how close the shave was. It was close enough. I worked my way down the lather, shaving my left cheek and working my way underneath my jaw. I dipped the blade in the water every so often to clean it off.
She flashed into my mind again. Her face penetrating my reflection and engraving into my skull. My heart began to pound furiously. My eyes began to swell as she smiled at me. I looked into the sink, shaking my head and breaking the flow of my shaving ritual. I closed my eyes, regained my breathing, and sniffed the mucus from my nose away. Taking a deep breath, I looked back up and caught something I hadn't seen before. The fog covered up the mirror once again, missing a small area. The area read, "I love you" with the word "love" replaced with a heart. My heart pounded again. How could things have gone so wrong? How could I have screwed up so bad? How could I have let her go? How could I? The tears began falling into the sink rippling the water and interlocking within each other. I gripped the sink's edge.
"Alright..." I said after a moment. I looked up at the words written in the mirror. I sighed, took my hand, and wiped the fog off of the mirror. My partial shaven face stared back at me. "What the fuck?" I shrugged. I looked down at my razor as it dripped with shaving cream into the sink. It urged me to use it again, but this time not the way it was intended for. The million and one thoughts ran through my mind in a nanoseconds. It wouldn't make any difference, would it? No. No, it wouldn't. Just quickly and it would be over before it began. That's it. What would be the purpose though? What? My eyes found a glaze that can only be found in those who are lost. The kind of glaze from those who don't know where they are; who don't know what's going to happen next. It was the glaze of a dead man. "Here we go" I muttered.
I dipped the razor in the water, cleaning the blade fresh. Lifting it up, I placed the warm edge against my throat. My heart began pounding furiously as my breathing became faster and faster. I pressed the blade further piercing skin. Blood began rolling down. I already started and now I had to finish. I gripped the razor fiercely as the agony sunk in. My hands began shaking as I took the blade horizontally along my trachea. I tried to scream, but the rushing blood clogged it up only becoming a gurgling noise. I felt my face become instantly numb and cold from the loss of blood. The tissue tore easily and the cut was nice and clean excluding the pool of blood now. The blood rolled down my hands. I began to feel dizzy. My eyes rolled instantly to the back of my head as I finished the job, slicing through my Adam's apple and reaching the other side. The razor had shredded my skin looking much like some cheese that had been grated. The blood had left my hand causing instant rigor mortise making me give the razor a death grip. I fell backwards, hitting the door hard. Spasms surged through my body and my feet found the water left on the floor. I slipped, falling to the ground gurgling more blood and coughing up spurts of the red