Afterimage

[Chrysalis]

A dimly lit, smoke filled bar. The old-fashioned, generic music intertwined and mixed with the occupants' whispers and the clattering of machinery coming from the thick station walls created a feverish cacophony. Reclined and slouched, Jason rested with his right hand elbow on the table closest to the exit, his left folded over his stomach. His mouth was slightly agape and his eyes were fixated at a malfunctioning neon sign flickering on the wall in front of him, at the opposite side of the station's corridor-promenade. He was alone. His unkempt hair and beard, dark circles under, and a dead look in his eyes suggested he preferred it that way.

On a night like this, and many others, this was his preferred haunt. Here he would pound away at, firstly, beer, then whiskey, then anything else he could think of. What is life, after all, without a little variety - he thought. Almost like that of a stroke victim, his open mouth slowly deformed into a half-smile, his dead eyes blinked, and his weary head turned away from the neon sign. He turned clumsily, with his chair squeaking as he dragged it across the floor. His hands plopped onto the table, and his head swayed for a moment as he tried to observe the other patrons around him, who seemed more like animate shadows than human beings at this juncture. He was past the whiskey stage, and the beer stage he couldn't even recall. He let his head fall onto the table, and onto his arms. He closed his eyes.

The staring contest with the sign left an afterimage, dancing up and down under his closed eyelids, to the tune of his drunk mind. It was burned into his retina, much like the afterimage he tried to avoid through all of this. The one burned to the back of his head, the one coming out in dreams both waking and nightly. He stared at his fair share of light-bulbs, neon signs and flames, but he never dreamed that the flame of a dying world, his dying world would be branded onto his subconscious. That it would follow him, seemingly, for all time. Go to a therapist, his friends and colleagues advised. Go fuck yourselves, he advised back, and kept repeating until they fucked off - for good.

The afterimage faded as he lifted his head, the room dancing up and down in a vertigo. He reached for his glass, but he knocked it over, the liquid spilling onto and off the table.
He got up unsteadily. It was time for bed. There were no phases after this one, this is the one that makes it fade.