Bottom

Sitting here in this dimly lit basement, I close my eyes and wish I were somewhere else. The smoke is slowly starting to fill the room, and has begun to irritate my eyes. The gasmask I’m wearing is helping me breath, but the straps are on too tight, and the cheap buckles of the mask are digging into the side of my neck. Through the tears starting to form in my swollen eyes, I can make out faces, but I don’t know whether they are crying or laughing. The room is a blur, as I hear is the distinct pounding coming from upstairs. Then, in a moment of clarity, I’m able to focus, and look down at the objects in front of me, as I scream through the muffling of the mask, “I got two pair, Jacks over Nines”.
This is the 17th consecutive day I’m in my friend Jesse’s basement, stuck playing what seems like an endless game of poker with his two friends/drug dealers. I withstand the constant barrage of chain smoking and marijuana induced giggles because there is no where else to go, and I don’t want to be home. School seems like a distant memory now, although its only been three months since I’ve dropped out of college. I’ve become too lazy to hold a steady job, and my other friends have abandon me because of my recent negative outlook on life. I’m living day to day, and the only constant in my life is this midnight poker game. Five dollar buy in, winner takes all. You can lose four days in a row, win the next day and you got all your money back, just to lose it all again in the following games. Any second I’m waiting for Dante to show up and sit down next to me, because I’m pretty sure this one of the circles of Hell.
At first, the smoking wasn’t so bad. A few cigarettes here and there, a joint or two, and that would be the end of it, but as the nights grew longer, the smoking increased, and my asthma couldn’t take it anymore. I could of just stayed home. I could of called up some one else, gone to watch a movie. It’s New York for goodness sake, I could of done anything! Alas, I couldn’t let go. That late night poker game completed the bleak abyss that was my life, and I had to make it work. The only solution: a gasmask.
As the night goes on, I begin to realize that this plan was doomed from the start. Wearing a gasmask in front of three stoned idiots wasn’t the brightest of plans. One bozo turns to me and says “look, I can blow this in your face and you wont even smell it”, not realizing that smoke right to your face will cause your eyes to tear. I start to yell, but the limited brain function of my company, and the gasmask itself deter my rant from penetrating anyone’s ears. I resort to physical displays of anger and slam my fists down on the table, knocking over a soda can that was being used as an ashtray. Where else would this heinous combination of coca cola and cigarette ash end up? Well all over my pants of course! A thunderous laughter erupts all around me, and I just sit down with wet pants, nodding my head in shame and defeat.