placebo effect

everything comes to a needle's point in the pit of my stomach with a stabbing motion. nothing in the room is where it was left by the last hands that touched it. the laws of physics have been turned inside out and sent to parade naked in the streets while inside this hell everything floats spins tumbles and disassembles itself with the efficiency of a colony of ants in the summer. razor edges have become dull. this knife bumps against my skin like a dead fish bleeding from its gills, while the carpet cuts crisscrosses in the soles of my feet with laser precision. everything has become a mockery of itself, like some nightmarish curse from the bowels of an aztec temple. water in my throat turns to chalk dust from an old eraser. i run my fingers through my dirty hair and my hand gets caught in the tangle of barbed-wire sprouting from my skull. i'm alone, but the silence deafens me in a mocking voice. i can't get anything done like this. the world is falling apart. the lights flicker and fail. in the last bit of light before darkness swallows everything, i think i catch a shadow climbing up the wall in the edges of my failing vision. i can't get anything done like this. the music that only a moment ago buffered my sanity against this onslaught of sensory madness has now devolved into the screams and cries of the damned. the sounds of instruments of music give way to the sounds of instruments of torture. metal chimes against metal, thuds against flesh. something in the distance makes a splattering sound. i haven't moved, but i have become completely disoriented. am i... was i sitting or... there was a table here... i'm afraid to reach out, but i have to... my fingers shake and stretch outward slowly, tentatively... i feel the leaves and thorns of a rosebush, ivy climbing up a moisture slicked wall of concrete, a wind starts to blow, doors slam, animals cry, the ground heaves and then collapses, all i can feel is the sensation of falling, all i know is the sensation of falling. the needles in my stomach jump, float for a moment, and then tumble down into my gut. everything is blackness and spinning. nothing makes sense. blood flows from a dirty tap that can't be stopped. the drain is clogged with globs of unidentifiable organic matter. a light appears, like a flashlight beam on the last breath of its batteries catching the dust in the air. it sweeps back and forth, flickers, and fails. crawling on hands and knees in the gore and dirt, i find an opening in the ground. a warm breeze wafts upwards from the unfathomable depths. behind me i hear chains rattle. the idea of choice no longer exists. i tip forward face first into the abyss, and let go...