Ink and Time (standard:drama, 4675 words)
Author: servetheser	Added: Nov 04 2005	Views/Reads: 3133/2179	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Marcus and Brandon were the best of friends in highschool,now one year into college, Brandon starts to become depressed and sucicidal. Marcus is easily classified as far from sainthood. When it appears that Brandon is in trouble he comes to see his frien

INK AND TIME By. Andrew M. Abernathy 

The room reeked with the haunting aroma that brings back feelings of
heartbreak and hangovers.  The smell of cheap beer spilt on the floor, 
mixed with the dank stench of cigarettes clinging to the furniture and 
burned in the carpet. Amongst this gauntlet of broken bottles, empty 
cigarette boxes, and crushed beer cans lay Brandon.  Being twenty he 
was still not a man, nor was he a child anymore, but in limbo, a hiding 
place between hope and denial.  An age very symbolic of his inner 
feelings, being that he was torn between the fond memories of past 
friendships and happy birthday wishes, and the desire to break from his 
roots and find himself.  All of his dear friends had already moved off 
to college, leaving him lagging behind, feeling abandoned.  Alone and 
tired the boy opened his eyes with the sour pain brought only by the 
hangover of all hangovers.  He mumbled the words, “Something has to 
change.” 

A florescent light flashed, maybe it was only in his mind or maybe he
was seeing something more ethereal, but in his state, too confused to 
think or even function, Brandon couldn't find the strength to ponder 
such things. Once again the light flashed followed by a faint but harsh 
yell,  “Breathe!” This forceful light attacked him, followed again by 
the harsh yelling, “Breath Brandon! Mutherfucker breathe!” This time 
Brandon's eyes and mouth simontaniously burst open emitting a horrific 
cough; almost rusty sounding, like opening a basement door that has 
been idle for a decade.  With tear-filled eyes, he looked around the 
room seeing his friends. Bradley was hovering over him hands on his 
chest. Charles and Kittie held him.  Crying and trembling Brandon 
suddenly felt an alcohol-induced weight pulling his head to the floor.  
He let out one last tear and concentrated on breathing. “In and out, in 
and out, just keep breathing and the next moment will be ok,” he 
thought Silently and almost reverently Bradley sat to the side of his 
friend, and looked at Kittie, not saying a word but speaking volumes 
with his eyes. Brandon was breathing now; he was going to be ok, there 
would be no arrests for intoxicating a minor but more importantly there 
would be no funerals. Bradley picked up his small friend and placed him 
on the beer stinking couch covering him with a jacket left by a friend 
hours before.  Almost in one movement Bradley sat down on the 
living-room floor, cracked open another beer and looked at Kittie, who 
was sitting next to Brandon gently stroking his forehead.  Bradley 
toasted his drink in the air and said, “Well, here's to Brandon.” 
Bradley slowly chugged back the cheap lager, and closed his now older 
eyes. According to Kittie, (who happened to be the only one sober 
enough to remember that night.)  It started just as any late Friday 
night had. She brought the liquor, Bradley brought the beer, and as 
always Brandon supplied the drunken entertainment.  After an hour of 
heavy drinking, downing their favorite shots, “The Four Horsemen,” 
“Straight Tequila” and of course “The Suicide,” they found themselves 
subject to a show of drunken acrobatics.  Brandon, not knowing what he 
was doing, jumped off the stairwell, hung from the ceiling fan, and 
eventually found himself banging his head into the TV stand.  The 
fragile stand ended up breaking, causing the glowing box to fall to the 
ground were it still lay the next morning displaying a mini series of 
static electricity. About four tequila shots after the hilarious TV 
incident, Brandon as usual told jokes in a way that would puzzle the 
sober man but made those who were “shit-faced” almost cry from 
laughter.  After another few shots of Jose Cuervo he started stumbling 
to the bathroom under the stairwell, the same one he had leaped from 
only moments before. Just as he reached the door he fell to his knees 
and landed face forward on the floor. Being the physical comedian he 
was Charles and Kittie first laughed at his collapsed state and 
trembling arms.  Thinking it was little more than cheap entertainment 
the two sat back and chuckled. But, after what felt like a few minutes 
to them but could have been half an hour they realized, there was no 
joking going on. Nervously Charles and Kitty went to pick up their 
friend, only to find he wasn't breathing.  Kittie held him and tried to 
hold him down as he jerked around like a mouse caught in a trap.  
Charles, ran upstairs to wake Bradley, who hours earlier, had been 
dragged to bed by his long time girlfriend Julia; by this time the two 
had fallen dead asleep in their room.  Bradley was a volunteer fire 
fighter as well as an Eagle Scout.  Hopefully he had slept off some of 
his buzz. Kittie waited for Bradley. She rubbed Brandon's arm, sobbing, 
“Please wake up Brandon, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”  She held him like she 
had never held anything, like she was holding on to her own life inside 
of this boy she hardly knew. She calmed down for a moment when she 


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