She pulled a hit from the swirled-glass creation, the acrid chemical smoke drifting lazily from her upper lip, curling around, obscuring a tiny mole before sneaking into her nostril to run through her pulmonary system again. Each pass the smoke grew weaker, thinner, as her body absorbed it instead of precious air.  Eyes half open, once pale-blue now blazed a noxious red. Her ears rang.

It was a painful need, that nagging desire always in the back of her mind, always chewing away at her dreams and goals, a dull blade knocking chips, spark and all, from so fragile self-respect.

As the pain receded and she slunk back into the warm arms of Forget, she was betrayed by her eyes and a tear fell.

My crackpipe has grown, transformed over the years, from simple knowledge to data to rampant seething, patterns. The crack pipe shattered and shivered when knowledge wasn’t enough. The patterns began to go wild, expanding and growing growing like interlaced vines. A fractal that cannot be mastered, cannot be wholly viewed in instant. As she wished for the pattern, I wished for the smoke.

It lands on the television screen. An enormous expanse of glowing colors and shapes, flickering, overloading the fly’s multifaceted eyes. If you were to look close you’d see mirror-perfect reflections of a million dreams, sports gods and local hope for a sportier tomorrow. It raises its forelegs and drags them across its illuminated eyes, swipe, repeat.

Upon close inspection the insect’s visage is hideous. Bulbous head, cruel mouth ringed with tendrils and appendages, hooks and tongues, those special things that nightmare is born from. Watching longer still, the mindless thing twitches and flexes, its entire body seems pregnant with some alien horror. Back to those cunning eyes, the head shifts, reflected heroes fade and light pushes forth another character.

A kindly old woman sits at a polished wooden table, her elderly husband stares at the screen, not seeing the fly, for his vision is poor, but he knows his team, he knows which colors are his pride, which represent mid-western righteousness. His wife, the old woman, talks on.

“It was such a peculiar plant. I got it at the farmer’s market. So odd. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She stops in her retelling of the tale to watch a young woman, two tables over, light a cigarette. The old woman frowns. “Such a peculiar plant.”

At the bar, directly under the fly, a young man sits. He listens to the old woman’s story without turning around. He is reminded of a movie. Such a peculiar plant. The young man didn’t like place. He was accustomed to certain patterns. This pattern unnerved him. They frosted their mugs here, so your beer came cold, but in moments was watery. More watery American beer. He stared at the television screen, the one where the fly rested, and did not see either the fly or the screen. He just stared and sipped watery beer.

The bartender was a young girl with stainless steel rings pushed through her eyes and ears, and she often wished she could put then through her cheeks somehow. She watched the young man frown at his beer, drink it with disdain and distance. She watched the old woman talk at her husband, who watched the screen, and she watched the fly, which did not buzz. Rather, the fly twitched, as if it was being electrocuted.