Stranger than fiction: Marla and Jack take a holiday

No, this is not another movie review. This is to inform you, with a good use of poetic licence, how my life is stranger than fiction. It started like any other Wednesday, well… not really. I was very sick with the flu and had not moved for 3 days straight. Still, I was feeling better, and somehow I knew this would be the last day of me feeling sick. I receive a phone call from an annoying roommate. She says she has something to tell me. I knew she was either going to bitch me out, or to tell me she was moving out. Either way, I was in the mood for some emotional support. Marla comes over… for a little bit. The sex we had could send any good christian into the bowels of hell. We had to clean up soon, though… a quick shower instead of a bubble bath was in order. She was late for rehab. God knows how those fuckers are about unpunctual junkies. A few minutes after we part, annoying roommate comes in and tells me she’s moving out. Something about different lifestyles. I just nodded pleasantly… avoided saying that the only reason I didn’t kick her out, was because I wasn’t sure of the city’s laws regarding evicting roommates, which is why I resorted to the “i’ll-make-your-life-a-living-hell” technique.

This calls for a celebration. I decide to give Marla a little visit. Not that I wanted to get laid again, but was looking for a good time nevertheless. She looks a bit happier than usual to see me. She tells me she loves me, and that she feels honored I appreciate her art. For a moment I think this is too perfect, but the normal level of happiness grows into glee. It can only mean one thing: She’s fucking high as a kite again. Lets make the most out of it. Lets be kids again. We cook everything inside her cupboard. I know after tonight it will be a nightmare. The initial good feeling of a high always gets substituted by a need for survival of the high, which means there will be a constant panic attack for the rest of the week… sometimes even longer. Nevertheless, always too long.

Morning comes, Marla leaves for work, I know she won’t be able to get there. I decide shut my mind up, and go on about my day. My mind has never been too good about obeying me, so I decide to give her a call, convince her to go back home. She’s confused, lost, incoherent… a hear the cars’ horns going off in the background. This is a dissaster. I knew she was walking in the middle of the street, not looking. My fears turn into panic when I hear a crash, a thud, and a signal lost.

I call again, silence. What to do? She said she was in Masonic? Where though. I’m freaking out. I call the police. “Has anyone reported any female pedestrians ran over in the last half an hour?” “Yes, there has been,” says the dispatcher after ruffling through her papers. I gulp. “Can I ask for her condition?” is my next thought. Unfortunately they cannot give me that information over the phone, they tell me to go to the General Hospital. I get there as soon as possible. “What’s your relation to the patient?” the social worker asks. “I’m her friend, ahem.”

Substantial head injuries. The body? Nothing permanently damaged. I do not believe though, and as soon as they let me see her, I look under the sheets, same way Mothers inspect their newborns. “Two legs, two arms, two hands, 10 fingers…” I inspect my surroundings, to see what other victims looked like, more out of embarrassement for what I had just done, than out of true curiosity. No, right now, my full attention was on Marla and on her swollen eye, and her bruised up chin. I thought it must be a movie, because her injuries were strategically placed. Bad enough so that she had something to show as proof of her lethal encounter with a two ton vehicle, but not too bad to entice disgust or for the audience to flip the channel. After all, this is her narrative, I’m just a special guest. Marla returns for five seconds from her half unconsious state to say, “They have me naked? How undignified.” She faints again.

After my initial concern dies out, I start to get bored. I look around to find some gory entertainment. What do I find? Convicts, serial killers, white trash, transgendered-suicidal-HIV patients. Honestly, this is my worst nightmare come true. To be surrounded by crazy lepers, and knowing that, if they wanted, they could spit a huge pint of blood on me, infecting me with their Hepatitis C. I look at my half unconscious love, and squint my eyes. She belongs here with these lunatics… yet why am I not scared of her? She’s a good girl caught in bad things. Is she?

I get another phone call from my other roommate. The other one; beautiful hypocrite who deserves to be gang banged by the lepers found in this ER. “What do you want?” I ask. She tells me she’s moving out. I tell her she has to paint back the room to its original color. “Hope it is not too much of an inconvenience,” I state. “Can you call the landlord and ask him for the original color? That way we can just skip a step.” I can tell she’s pissed. I bet she has done things to my toothbrush. Which makes me think, I should do something to hers.

Marla and I leave the ER at nighttime, they hand in her clothes that have been ripped open by the Ambulance crew. “My $300 assymetrical sweater??? How dare they? Someone must pay!” On our way back, she scores more drugs, knocks over some trash cans, newspaper stands, ya know… someone must pay for her clothes. She’s up to no good. That swollen eye does look kind of nice.

Marla calls these little escapades and encounters with death “holidays.” I wonder… do I really take some enjoyment out of the suffering she puts me through? Are these my holidays too? I don’t really have time to think about it now. I must search for new 2 roommates, and put some toothbrushes inside the toilet bowl.

– Jack