Meeting The Medicine Man

The rain falls hard but the blood remains. A nomad. A man without a face or a name. I wander through these familiar streets like a stranger in my own skin. Reliving moments from a bygone era where the sun wasn’t afraid to push its way through the dark clouds. The sun. Laughter. Friends. Feeling alive. Wanting to be alive. Then the voice of my mother echoes through the heavy fall wind. “This is your last chance, James. If you use again, you’re not welcome here.” I should have heeded that warning. But instead I dug inside her purse for loose change, a couple of bills, and a handful of red pills. I took them all down to the alley on St James, where the medicine man awaited the arrival of his great disciple with a mouth full of discolored razor sharp teeth. Like the mouth of a great white shark. A laugh as evil as a Kamikaze killer crashing into a building filled with love, life, and innocence. As evil as the devil himself. From his tattered army jacket he hauls out the needle. My kryptonite. The tiny instrument capable of breaking down my entire defense system. But what I have isn’t enough. There's a favour I’ll need to do first. The medicine man holds that smile and needle like a statue. The rain falls hard. The only way to get through it is to pretend that I’m watching a scene in a horrific PSA. That I’m someone else.