I open my eyes. Where am I? The smell of dirty water and dead fish hits my nostrils like a punch in the nose as I look around to see that I'm at the path down by the river. Everything's just a little too wide but I don't care, because I feel just a little too light. My steps are like feathers. I walk down the all too familiar asphalt path, memories rushing back as I look at the swinging bench set up to look across the river over to Canada. Oh, Canada. You fucked up dream of an escape. Told myself my whole life I'd run to you, only to figure out you're just as bad as the rest. God dammit. I get a prickling feeling on my back; a sensation I get when I know someone is trying to make eye contact with me, when they know I don't want to. This creeping dread turns into what feels like a single finger running down the shoulder blade of my back, which is when I know I need to run. Where? Where do I need to run? The lighthouse. I don't know why, but my brain lights up and I sprint as fast as possible to the lighthouse. I know it will be my salvation. By the time I get to the porch the snow has covered over a foot of the ground and frost sticks to my scales like I'd been walking overnight. I'm so, so tired. But my steps still feel like feathers. I swing open the door with no difficulty.

One of the few things that made Rex feel content during the day (if he was able to get up to do it, which was one of the worst tasks of all) was making food with Val. Even when the house was stressful it was so relieving, even when getting up to do it made Rex wanna put a 12-guage in her mouth. They were making soup tonight. Val did dishes for them, as well as added the broth for her sensory problems. Rex added the noodles, stirred, and added spices. He made sure to not add any that Val didn't like. When it was done at least he could say he made something and it helped that Val always said it was really good. Just thinking about the praise he would sing about Rex's cooking was enough to make the mutt's tail wag.

Rex was standing in a place unfamiliar to her, surrounded by red dust. It picked up all around her, and it was only as he tried to hold up a paw that they realized she was gripping hard onto a double-sided axe. He couldn't let go, no matter how hard he tried. For a while he could see nothing in this red dust storm; nothing but red all around. But soon, something came into his vision. Through the dust, an image became clear. It was Jay and it was Sprout. Jay had Sprout's head in hir mouth. When the dust cleared more they could see that hir teeth were digging into the top of the jackalopes skull and into their lower jaw, as light streams of blood dripped down their forehead and chin. And they were putting more pressure down even still. It was then that Rex also noticed that one of Sprouts horns had protruded up and out through the right side of Jays long snout, presumably where the crocodilian had bit down on their head. Jay was holding hard onto Sprouts wrist. Rex stood and watched this scene. He is unable to move. Nor breathe. But his gut begins to churn with a feeling. A feeling of dread, a pit in his stomach. But it's also a feeling of knowing. Like a roller coaster going down and down and down... Or an axe.

I was so high I could hardly keep my eyes open. My fur rubbed up against Val's, mixing together to create swirls of yellow and purple. I was leaning against them, holding the bong. The cold glass of it cools my fingers, nipping at my joints. I'm procrastinating taking my rip like always. It's only then that I tune in and remember we're making dinner, as the oven timer goes off and Val stands up. When he leaves my side I feel as if the whole earth has fallen out from under me, and--not realizing how much weight I'd been putting on the pitbull--slumped onto the broken mattress with a hard thud. It's been a while since I'd been this high, but we had to buy the top shelf shit since the snow storms had been keeping our dispensary from having the best stock. Good high. Just a really expensive high.

It reminded me of the time me and Val did acid in his dorm room. It was like a dream, we were laughing the whole time. We went to his car to smoke with our friend and ended up having to duck from the cops, hoping they didn't see us in the back seat through the tinted windows. It wasn't scary though. It felt like a video game. We were laughing the whole time. I saw their faces in flashes through the clouds of smoke, but it grew so dense in my drug-smeared mind that I could only catch glimpses of my friends. We ended up smoking around 7 bowls before deciding to go back, and when we opened the van door piles of smoke billowed out into the night sky. We watched it in awe for what felt like several minutes. We said goodbye and went back to Val's dorm room. We sat on the ground and ate strawberries. They hurt his teeth so I chewed one up and fed it to him "like a baby bird," something even we wouldn't do while not tripping balls. I asked him how it tasted. "Tastes like strawberry," he said. We played with stuffed animals on his floor, creating stories for all of them. It was one of the best nights of my life.