Almost Transparent Blue Read Free

Okinawa coolly pushed the plunger, and the heroin and blood entered me all at once.
    "Hey, well, that's it, how about it?" Okinawa laughed. He pulled out the needle.
    In the instant that my skin quivered and the needle was gone, the smack had already rushed to my fingertips and hit my heart with a dull thud. Before my eyes there seemed to be something like a white mist, and I couldn't make out Okinawa's face very well. I pressed my hand against my chest and stood up. I wanted to take a deep breath, but my breathing rhythm was off and I had trouble doing it. My head was numb as if it had been beaten, and the inside of my mouth was dry enough to burn. Reiko took my right shoulder to hold me up.
    When I tried to swallow just a little saliva from my dry gums, I was filled with a nausea that seemed to rush up from my feet. I fell groaning onto the bed.
    Reiko seemed worried and shook my shoulder.
    "Hey, don't you think you gave him a little too much? He hasn't shot up a lot before, hey look, he's real pale, is he O.K.?"
    "I didn't give him that much, he's not gonna die, right? Naw, he's not gonna die, Reiko, but bring that pan, he's sure gonna heave."
    I buried my face in the pillow. Although the back of my throat was parched, spittle overflowed steadily from my lips, and when I tried to lap some up with my tongue, violent nausea attacked my lower belly.
    Even trying as hard as I could to breathe, I got only a little air, and that felt as if it didn't come in through my nose or mouth but just seeped in through a tiny hole in my chest. My hips were almost too numb to move. From time to time a strangling pain pierced my heart. The swollen veins in my temples twitched.
    When I closed my eyes, I felt panicky, as if I were being pulled at terrible speed into a lukewarm whirlpool. Clammy caresses ran all over my body, and I began to melt like cheese on a hamburger. Like water and globs of oil in a test tube, distinct areas of hot and cold were shifting around in my body. In my head and throat and heart and prick, fevers were moving.
    I tried to call Reiko, my throat cramped, no words came out.
    I'd been thinking I wanted a cigarette, that's why I wanted to call Reiko, but when I opened my mouth my vocal cords just quivered and gave off a strange whistling sound. I could hear the clock ticking over near Okinawa and Reiko.
    The regular sound rang in my ear with a strange gentleness. I could scarcely see. At the right side of my range of vision, which was like a diffused reflection on water, there was a dazzling flicker that hurt me. As I thought that must be the candle, Reiko peered into my face and lifted my wrist to check my pulse, then said to Okinawa, He's not dead.
    I moved my mouth desperately. Raising an arm as heavy as iron I touched Reiko's shoulder and whispered, "Give me a smoke." Reiko put a lighted cigarette between my lips, wet with spittle. She turned toward Okinawa and said, "Hey, look here at Ryū's eyes, he looks scared as a little kid, right? He's shaking, you know, it's really pathetic, hey, he's even crying."
    The smoke clawing at my lungs was like a living thing. Okinawa took my chin in his hand to raise my face and check the pupils of my eyes and said to Reiko,
    "Hey, that was a close call, a real bummer, like, if he'd been maybe twenty pounds lighter that would've been the end of him." The warped outlines of his face looked like the sun seen through the beach umbrella you sprawl under in summer. I felt as if I'd become a plant. Folding its grayish leaves at dusk, never putting out flowers, just having its downy spores blown away by the wind, a quiet plant like a fern. The light was put out. I could hear the sounds of Okinawa and Reiko undressing. The sound of the record rose—"Soft Parade" by The Doors—and between the notes I could hear rubbing on the rug and stifled moans from Reiko.
    An image of a woman plunging from a tall building floated into my mind. She was staring at the receding sky, her face was