The Haunting Cost of Fentanyl
The high wears off. The ghosts don't.
Content Warnings: Substance Abuse, Child Abuse, Death of a Child, Mild body horror
The trailer kitchen surrounded Rose – peeling linoleum, nicotine-stained walls, black mold creeping through every corner. Rain leaked through the roof, striking her back with a steady tap, tap, tap.
But Rose noticed none of it.
She was nodding1.
Her body folded at the waist; spine parallel to the floor. Fentanyl drew her down into its embrace – that perfect void where time and self dissolved. Her head bobbed in a gentle rhythm, chin dropping then snapping back up.
Through the haze, a wrongness crept in, like fingernails scraping stone prison walls until bone showed through. Animal instinct clawing toward the surface.
She pried her eyes open, slow as a dying heart's beat, and saw the back door standing wide open. Every window had shattered, scattering glass across the floor. Outside, a storm raged – a cornered lion hatefully lashing out at the world, its claws the lightning and roars the thunder.
Important. There was something important she needed to do, but she couldn't think.
Thinking filled her veins with shame.
Swaying, she searched for her tin foil2.
"Hello, Mommy," came a small voice between thunderclaps.
She knew that voice, but it was wrong now – hollowed out, stripped of its former joy.
Julius stood before her in his favorite Bluey shirt, now sodden and caked with mud. His warm brown complexion – inherited from his father – had washed out like he hadn't seen the sun in years.
But he couldn't be...
He wasn't here...
She'd left him by the road...
To teach him to behave...
She was going back...
Soon? The fent made time slip through her fingers like water.
"You left me." He shambled forward, one twisted leg dragging across the floor. Closer now, she could map the crimson rivers across his face, tributaries flowing from the heavy shards of glass buried in his skull.
"Alone.
By the highway.
In the dark."
He inched closer.
"The trucker didn't see me."
She retreated with shuffling steps, recoiling from the stench of mildew and decay radiating from him.
"It hurt so much, Mommy."
She shook her head, trying to dislodge his words. Her unwashed hair whipped around her face, the ends stinging like tiny whips – part denial, part penance. Too much motion for the state she was in.
Her feet slid on the slick linoleum, sending her crashing down. Glass teeth bit into her palms. The fent dulled the physical pain, but terror bubbled beneath, a geyser straining against fent's chemical restraints.
 "You were being bad. Acting out. Screaming."
 "I was hungry," Julius said. "I hadn't eaten in days."
His eyes – mirror images of her own save for the blue-grey film of death – bore into her. Hollow and cold with judgment.
"I was going to come back to get you once you learned your lesson."
The justification sounded so valid in her ears. Surely, he would understand and forgive.
"I've learned, Mother." He smiled, showing blood-caked teeth. Slowly, he reached up, fingers curling around the largest shard of glass embedded in his skull. It made a wet sound as he wrenched it free. Dark fluid ran down his face in congealing rivulets.
"I've learned so much."
Nodding refers to a state of drowsy, semi-consciousness caused by fentanyl's sedative effects. When someone is "nodding," appear to drift in and out of consciousness, often slumping forward or "nodding" their head as they lose muscle control.
Tin foil is used to smoke Fentanyl
This was gut-wrenching. I can't imagine what that was like. It's pretty powerful how you've been able to translate the terrors of your childhood into stories. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing, it takes guts.