It’s a rainy night and you just burned down a kitchen making waffles. You’re distraught because you can’t enjoy your favorite 2 A.M. meal but you’re feeling something way worse than anger. You’re scared. You’re scared because years ago, you fought a giant battle within yourself. A battle that little make it out of alive, and that’s addiction. You didn’t drink or do any drugs because there was something much better and satisfying to fill the void inside. You realize now, you must go back.
So you visit the place that started it all. You walk into the automatic doors and after waking up, it all starts coming back to you. The smell, the size, the depressed workers, the gardening section. This feeling has been dormant in your life for years. You begin to cry. “Is everything alright sir?” Says a worker from the Paint Department. “….I-I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt like this.” You say back to the worker. “Felt like what?” The worker asks back.
After making a B-Line to the isle you very so desired in your younger years, it felt like reuniting with an old friend. You get closer to the beautifully cut pallets made from Ash Trees. Sweating, you pick it up and almost drop it because it weighs around 35lbs. This is it. This is exactly what you needed. You grab the nearest cart from an old lady and dump out all of the items on it so you can have room for the intense amount of wood needed to replace the kitchen. The total comes out to be $2,399.99.
You arrive home after a long 14 minute drive feeling defeated. You have returned to the very thing you sought out to destroy. It’s still rainy and every pallet that you carry up to your house ends up soaking wet. The feeling of nostalgia is too much for you to handle. You break down into tears. “I just thought that it would be all over.” You say to yourself silently.
You wake up from your depressive sleep. All of the wood in the truck has been moved to the house. You look around and see nobody around you. It’s like you did all of this without even having any recollection. The wood is sitting in your house and you say that it’s time. Time to rebuild. You grab your hammer and nails and begin to layout the outline of the floor. While doing this, you hit something under one of the carpets. You rip it out and discover something forgotten about. With no expression or emotion, you pick up the dead Home Depot worker from earlier and place him under your new floorboards. Sealing him away forever.
Your addiction has become uncaged. You become less and less of yourself after each strike of the hammer. You have realized that it has become too much. So as you make your last few strikes of the hammer, you look up to see that one thing has survived the fire. You pick up your Home Depot employee of the month plaque and proceed to bury it along side your old self under the pallets. Forever.
-A story by MiztaPige
Style's Rebel Radio 