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Divided


by Timothy Gager


When my room began to fill with smoke, I turned the music up. Ian Curtis should always be louder than a smoke alarm. It was then Sasha told me that I was killing myself but I countered by saying, if it were the end of the world we'd have no choice but to grab each other and make love, one last time. “What about…” she said nodded her head toward the first floor, "I don't know what to do."

Sasha and I had snorted a table of cocaine and I had her trapped inside my Joy Division bedroom. We were upstairs in our pajamas for two days. The record played over and over, the same way life tended to work repetitively for me. Sometimes when I reached the end of the grooves, I scratched my way against the hard bad sounding endpoint.

I didn't want her to leave. There was two feet of snow, huge snow banks, plus the last time I went outside I noticed multiple towers stained with ugly yellow dog piss. I realized how much dogs peed and that so many basic day-to-day realities were hidden.

“It's all o-kaaaay. I'm cooook-ing,” Lance called up from the kitchen. Most days, when he wasn't piddling around, he was busy with Sasha planning their wedding. “I'm not hungry,” she said softly.

In a few months I'll be forced to leave this room but when the girl lifted the needle, flicked the dust off and restarted Unknown Pleasures, I knew I still had some life left.

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