Alex: The Book of Nods
“Fucking heroin” Alex thought, her chin pitching forward to her chest. It snapped up again a few minutes later. She remembered back to those long ago days after she first started doing heroin when her nods were colorful little dreams. Now her arms had lines of bruises and scar tissue and her nods were a grey mist of blank deadness. What she really hated about fucking heroin was its ability to conjure up the past, to cough up old memories with an emotional fervor that made them feel like they happened yesterday. The irony was not lost upon her that the drug she was using to displace the pain of the present was breaking her heart with the anguish of the past. Some called it a soaky nostalgia but Alex felt it more as a deep melancholy as she recalled those painful past days.