Color Blind

His mother blubbered that the tiny crystals—excavated from the dirt road along the meadow winding river-like beneath Crystal Peak—rubbed upon one’s wrists would send one nirvana-bound. This same woman’s splash of tie dye in skirts and t-shirts, headbands for the sweat she never sweated, except when the LSD wound its way into her blood and her neck, which she rubbed, seemed to whisper oh god what a rush, oh god you have to try this. He knew, in reality, that everyone was different, and that some didn’t deserve. Like his mother, who was too stupid. Like him, who he knew should be locked up. He kept an apartment on Boulevard, in a neighborhood his mother called “colorful.” He bought lottery tickets at his building’s ground-level convenience store, the Korean owner mouthing hello mister, you want Lucky 8s again today? The Easy Shop’s windows were barred against the light and color of the Earth. This man, our hero, never won the lottery, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.