David Sharp took his first step out of the hospital and inhaled a deep breath of fresh air, glad to be away from the overly sanitized scents that he had been surrounded by since he had been checked in yesterday. He had been brought there for what was either some sort of contaminated alcohol induced hallucination, or a psychotic break.
It was truly ridiculous when you got down to it, really. He had imagined that he had seen a weird, black, shape-shifting bug horse appear in his kitchen calling him his Queen. As if that wasn’t silly enough, he thought that he himself changed into some sort of larger, black, shape-shifting bug horse that easily could have fit in as queen of the bug horses. But it was just a hallucination. Heck, his hallucination had even lamp shaded that fact by calling itself Hallucination. Ridiculous, right?
It was over, though. The doctor had himself said that they had purged his system of the offending liquor. The fact that that very same doctor called him his Queen after saying so meant absolutely nothing. Nothing! David had probably just talked in his sleep or something about his hallucinations and the doctor decided to play a prank on him. That’s all. He was so certain of this fact that he didn’t even bother asking the doctor for its confirmation.
He sat himself on the bench next to the bus stop that was near the hospital entrance. It was really unfortunate that he couldn’t get a hold of either of his roommates to give him a ride. Instead, he was left waiting for public transport and received the opportunity to spend plenty of time with his thoughts about black, horse like monsters.
A distraction came at an opportune time as a young woman sat next to him and pulled out a book.
“What book you reading?” David asked.
“Hm? Oh! It’s Black Beauty! It’s a really interesting read. It’s about the life of a beautiful, black horse by the name of Black Beauty, but I guess you probably knew that, everyone does. What I didn’t know was that it was written from the point of view of Black Beauty himself! I am so glad that my professor assigned this to my class, I’m loving it! Can you imagine what it’d be like to be a horse?”
David’s mouth hung open stupidly for several moments before he realized it and forced it shut.
“Are...you okay?" The woman asked, concern etched on her face.
“Yeah,” He replied weakly, “I’m fine.”
He turned away from her and stared steadfastly anywhere but towards that book, only vaguely aware through his peripheral vision of the disappointed look the woman sported. It was just coincidence, it had to be. She couldn’t possibly have known that he had just had a psychotic break where he thought he was a black horse thing.
“Where is that bus?!” He cried out when the awkward silence became too much for him.
Said bus rounded the corner and into view moments later. He sighed in relief as it approached. He casually read the banner plastered on the side of the bus as it drove up beside the stop. It was an ad for a spa with the slogan ‘Let us treat you like the queen you are.”
David’s eye twitched.
It’s nothing. It’s not talking to him. They’re not calling him a queen, it’s just a stupid advertisement. It’s just a stupid hallucination. Stop thinking about it!
With a surly face, he drudged his way onto the bus, paid his fair and sat down on the passenger side right behind the bus driver and was delighted to see his companion from the bus stop walk right past him. If he had to spend the entire ride looking at the woman with Black Beauty he would go mad.
As time passed, he found himself observing the bus driver. He was a neatly groomed, gentle looking black guy that was bobbing his head to the radio, like countless others were no doubt doing at this very moment. It was very soothing in its normalcy, and it seemed that Bob Seger’s Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll was playing, a song he always welcomed. David joined the driver in his head bobbing as the hospital slowly faded from view. The song came to an end as the bus jerked to a stop at a red light and an overenthusiastic man’s voice reached his ears.
“You are listening to one oh one point six FM Mirage Radio, your favourite place for all requests all day long. Let’s not waste any time and get to our next caller request! Hello, caller, you’re on the air, who am I talking to and what do ya wanna hear?”
A deep, though undeniably feminine, voice answered. “Uh...hey. I’m Chris. I have a craving to hear some Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“A wonderful choice, Chris. Are you a big fan of Queen?”
“Oh, absolutely! I wish he was alive today so I could see him perform in person.”
“Oh, but he is alive today. A bit of Queen lives on inside the hearts of every fan of his music!”
“Man, that is so cheesy!” The caller retorted through her laughter.
“Thanks for the call, Chris. Here’s Bohemian Rhapsody going out to all of you with a little Queen inside!”
The driver jumped in shock and whipped his head around when he heard David beating his forehead against the window.
Having failed at self defenestration, David covered his ears and stared out the window he had just bruised his forehead on, trembling somewhat from the onslaught of terrible coincidences. He prayed to God that he would get home without any more incidents.
True fact: God’s a dick.
Case in point: as the bus crawled through the heavy traffic, it passed by a field that had a big, bright sign with big, bright letters spelling out ‘Queen of Horses: Annual Charity Drag Queen Polo Game!’ Before David’s eyes were two teams of drag queens riding around on horseback knocking a ball up and down the field.
David promptly curled into a ball in his seat, shut his eyes tight, and kept covering his ears, only reconnecting with the world every now and then for just long enough to ensure he didn’t miss his stop. A few people prodded at him in an effort to coax him out of his ball and find out what was wrong, or perhaps simply to try and get him to stop taking up two seats so they could sit down, but he steadfastly ignored them. He was determined that nothing else would remind him that he just spent a day in the hospital recovering from believing he had turned into a royal horse.
After nearly half an hour of being tightly curled up into a ball, and a couple minutes soothing the resulting cramps once he got off the bus, David breathed easy as he walked the last few steps to his home. It was over, his journey was finally at its end. He could just walk inside, head straight for his bedroom where he could forget all about horses, queens and horse queens.
Upon pushing open the door, David was greeted by the familiar scent of home. It smelled of sour beer, dirty laundry and week old pizza. It smelled pretty terrible, actually. He really should clean up more often. He'd deal with that later, though. Right now, he needed a drink.
He hastened to the kitchen, the scene of his previous hallucinations. A quick look around showed no indications of anything out of the ordinary, though he would never admit that he feared it would be otherwise. He yanked open the fridge and spied that same half empty cardboard case of beer from yesterday morning. It was missing a few more cans than it had previously. His roommates had probably drunk a few themselves, and if they hadn’t hallucinated then it was probably safe for him to give it another go. He pulled out a can, cracked it open and chugged it down. He set the empty, metal container on the counter with a clink and a satisfied sigh.
“Hey, David, you’re back! What the heck happened to you? You didn't show up to the rehearsal, and your room mate said you were in the hospital or somethin’.” It was Johnny, one of his band mates that was supposed to be banned from this house. If he was in a more inquisitive mood, he probably would have asked what he was doing there, instead, he silently cursed Johnny for wearing a 'Wyld Stallyns' shirt from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
“I really don’t want to talk about it.” He muttered in an acidic tone while walking past his friend, intending on going to his room to rest.
“A’ight, if you don’t wanna talk that’s your business, man.” Johnny stated nonchalantly as he followed behind. “Hey, I ran into a guy, he’s a real big fan of yours so I invited him to come hang with us for a bit. That ‘kay with you?”
“Fine, whatever, he can hang here awhile, but I just wanna get some sleep. I’ve had a really bad day.”
“Don’t be like that, man, I promised him I’d introduce ya! He’s a fan, show a little love!”
“Fine,” David sighed, “let’s get this over with.”
“Sweet! He’s right this way!”
David followed Johnny into the basement, where he found the rest of his band mates hanging out with some guy he didn’t recognize. He was short, dressed all in black, and had startlingly bright blue eyes. Something about him seemed eerily familiar…
“So yeah…this is Hal.” Johnny introduced the little guy that shambled up to David, putting his hand out enthusiastically for a handshake.
“Hi! I’m Hal, I’m your biggest fan! This is so amazing, I am so happy to see you!”
David ignored the proffered hand, instead choosing to lean forward and stare rather rudely at its owner.
“Are you okay? You seem a little uneasy.” He mumbled nervously.
“Uh…yeah, he was in the hospital, maybe he’s not fully recovered yet.” Albert, the drummer of the band, suggested.
“…Hallucination?”
Hal blinked in confusion. “N..no. Hal’s my name.”
David let out a nervous laugh. He felt like he had truly gone crazy. Apparently oblivious to social cues, Hal visibly relaxed.
“Oh good, you’re laughing. Here I thought that maybe you didn’t like me.”
“Nope! I can’t handle this!” David declared as he began to run back the way he came.
“Hey, man! Where you goin’?” Johnny shouted after him.
“I’m going to bed!”
David bounded up the stairs two at a time, not daring to look back at his hallucination taken on human form. It was just too much for him to handle. He wasn't prepared for another mental breakdown just yet, he’d put off facing the next one until tomorrow.
He threw open his bedroom door and flung himself inside, slamming the door behind him and locking it with far more force than was necessary. He leaned with his back against the definitely locked door with closed eyes and exhaled with relief. He could finally relax. Nothing in his bedroom could possibly remind him of his prior delusions, and that’s all they were: delusions. He had to be crazy to think that that little guy was Hallucination.
Just then, a tired yawn greeted him from within his bedroom. David’s eyes snapped open and riveted on the little, black horse thing on his bed, stretching with its back arched like a cat. His lip began to tremble as the creature looked right at him with an elated expression.
“Hello, my Queen!” Hallucination greeted him gaily.
Somewhere nearby, a man tripped down some stairs out of shock as an ear piercing scream tore through the neighbourhood.
