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You get the worst idea imaginable. Dogshit. Irredeemable. If you were awake, if you were really yourself, you'd laugh it out of you immediately. Hell, if you were awake, you're not sure it'd ever occur to you— apart from being terrible, it's <span class="mu-i">abstract.</span> It runs on a fuzzy illogic you've never been able (or wanted) to channel. It's all... symbols. And... metaphors. And all that other stupid Ellery shit.
But you're dreaming right now. And this isn't your body. And you're tense, and exhausted, and bored. Odds are it won't do anything and you'll look stupid— but stupid to who? Pat's wandering around like a fellow idiot. Lester <span class="mu-i">is</span> an idiot, if it's even bothered to come down here. You're all alone in the dark.
So what you do is cup your hands around nothing, around air, around darkness. You bring it to your lips. And you drink it.
It is rich and syrupy, like you expected. It is bitter and herbal, a little like Pat's tea, but more like you set a tea tree on fire and ground up the ashes and snorted them. You might've spat it out if anything remained in your mouth, but it's already wicking up through your cheeks and diffusing out from there, and then the taste is the least of your concerns: your head is full of ants then, and dirtied hailstones, and swathes and swathes of crushed black velvet, and you are <span class="mu-i">thirsty</span> like you haven't drank for years— which is halfway true, isn't it? Haha! You shouldn't have done this, you <span class="mu-i">knew</span> it was a dogshit idea, there is pressure behind your eyes which might or might not be ants and you are on your knees clutching your temple, clutching the paint scraper, staring at the paint scraper, wondering if it'd be any less of a dogshit idea to jam the paint scraper into your skull, while the ants press and press against your eyeballs, until you say something like "Fuck it!" (it may have sounded more like "Auughhk") and jam the paint scraper into your right eyeball instead.
<span class="mu-i">Something</span> pops out, and it's so seamless and painless and relieves so much pressure that you do exactly the same to your other eyeball. (You couldn't see anything, anyhow.) You roll the two somethings around in your palm for a second before stowing them in your back pocket.
You never make it as far as prying your hand <span class="mu-i">out</span> of your pocket: you are awkwardly twisted around when you gasp feverishly and freeze solid. Something about you had changed— your pores, or some shit— do you have pores? Does it matter? You are desperate for moisture, or your weird fucking body is, and it's preparing to absorb anything. You mean anything. You mean that you are standing here, rigid, arm back, head full of fucking ants, and the darkness is sucking itself through your clothes, through your skin, your hair, your gaping mouth, your nostrils, and most especially through your eye sockets. It does not feel like ants or like hailstones, taken like this. It is more like the velvet, not to mention silk and fur and oil: soft, smooth, and musky.
