Happy Birthday Squid

As I walked through the door I could smell the odor. It was an odor of sadness that permeated the room. I scanned the room and found her sitting on the ground slumped over with her long limbs tangled. I knew what I had stumbled upon I had seen this pose before. A small trickle of semi-dry blood was on the inside of her right arm with a syringe close by. This was the sadness that I had smelled upon my entrance. Squid could never outrun her demons.

The thing about junkies is that you expect to see this scene sometime down the road so you prepare for it mentally. But in reality you are never prepared. A grim reminder of what a pure bag of heroin or too much heroin in one fix could do. My reaction was to walk over and stare. This wasn’t the movies where one walks in and tries desperately to revive the junkie. She was dead. I stood and stared at her past battle scars which riddled her arm and her beautiful face which had aged with her addiction. At that moment I thought of how sad; for at birth she was her parents pride and joy. Now she was a dead junkie.

I wanted to move her into a better position like laying her on the bed for when the cops and ambulance arrived. I opted to reach over and close her eyes. Although the drugs had ravaged her body she was still so beautiful even in death. The cops arrived and took my statement and even commented on what a shame it was to see a beautiful girl go out like this.

Me, well I like to think that Squid is up flying with the clouds and kissing them. That she was set free of her demons here on earth and given a new chance in the sky above. That the sun comes up for her every morning and she smiles as it touches her face. She would have been 35 today.

I wanted to wish you a happy birthday, Squid. Sorry to write this after so many years but I got a call reminding it was your birthday today, your Mom misses you much. Today as I walk out into the world I will look to the clouds and hope that you are flying up there. And when the sun goes down that you are sleeping with the angels.