The Devil and Kirstie Alley

Or, alternatively, my adventures with Oxycontin. The second day after my surgery I was more alert. I wasn't in a lot of pain, just very uncomfortable, what with there being a giant tube in my neck and a catheter in my nether-regions. The doctors decided to put me on Oxycontin. I'm pretty sensitive to narcotics and had never taken anything as heavy as that. I was kind of excited to start taking it, now I'd have street cred, which, you know, is of utmost importance to white girls in the rural Pacific Northwest. I could now talk about my sordid past with OC, you know, ox. (Yeah, you caught me, I totally just Googled street names for Oxycontin) So, anyway they shot me up with the ox and I settled back for what I hoped to be a peaceful and doped up evening. If only...I drifted off to sleep and was immediately assaulted with the most realistic dreams. I could see, smell, hear and taste everything as vividly as if I was awake. I could hear a demonic voice talking in a foreign language and flashes of disconnected images would come in and out of focus. Images of babies drowning in bathtubs of blood, people screaming and somewhere in it was Kirstie Alley. I'm serious. I can't couldn't make up something that bizarre. Even two and a half years later I can totally recall the deep reds and blacks and taste the metallic blood from that nightmare. I'm not sure Ms. Alley's role in the whole production, but I definitely saw her. I woke up in a cold sweat and the next time a nurse came to check on me I told her that I was never taking that painkiller again. She paged the doctor and he asked me if I had been having some strange dreams. Strange was not even the word. I've had plenty of strange dreams in my day, this was a hell of a lot more than strange. They switched me to Dilaudid and life was much easier after that. Well, I suppose easy isn't the right word considering. I still wonder about that night, about that dream. Oxycontin itself couldn't manifest images in my subconcious, they had to have been there all along. Which begs the question...what the hell is lurking in my head?