SWARTHOS

Los Angeles, 2 a.m., the Witching Hour of Regret

The ceiling fan spins its lazy, mocking circles, chopping the stale air of this godforsaken Los Angeles bedroom into jagged slivers of despair. Sleep apnea, that cruel bastard, yanks me awake like a junkyard dog on a chain, gasping, choking, my lungs clawing for oxygen in a city that’s already suffocating under its own weight. My heart’s pounding like a busted carburetor, and my mind—oh, that treacherous son of a bitch—kicks into overdrive, a screeching dragster peeling out on a highway of regrets. Twenty years ago, thirty maybe, the faces, the choices, the burned bridges—they swarm like roaches in the dark, skittering across the cracked linoleum of my skull. Should’ve said no to that deal. Should’ve walked away from her. Should’ve punched that smug bastard in the mouth when I had the chance. Too late now. Always too late.

I lie here, a sweating, heaving husk, staring into the void of a popcorn ceiling that’s probably laced with asbestos. The clock ticks toward 3 a.m., each second a hammer blow to the coffin of my sanity. The day ahead looms like a bad acid trip—another 24 hours of nothing, just me, the walls, and the relentless hum of a city that doesn’t give a damn. I’ll sit. I’ll stare. Maybe I’ll shuffle outside for a walk, dragging my feet through the cracked sidewalks of this stagnant, decaying hellhole. Los Angeles, city of lost souls, where dreams come to choke on smog and desperation. The palm trees sway like drunks, the neon flickers like a dying pulse, and every corner reeks of piss and broken promises. I’m in the thick of it, a ghost among ghosts, unseen, unnoticed, a nobody going nowhere fast.

The Egyptian doc—sharp-eyed, with a clipboard full of hieroglyphs and a voice like warm sand—gave me pills. Little white promises in an orange bottle. “Take these, not with alcohol,” she said, her accent thick as the Nile. But tonight, I’m teetering on the edge of that abyss. A glass of cheap bourbon sits on the nightstand, amber and tempting, whispering sweet nothings about oblivion. I’m not supposed to. I know. But to cope, to dull the jagged edges of this endless, gnawing existence, I might. I’ll see. The bottle’s there, and so am I, two lost souls circling each other in the dim glow of a streetlamp leaking through the blinds.

Morning creeps in, gray and merciless, painting the room in shades of defeat. Last night was a rough ride, a sleepless bender of tossing, turning, and wrestling demons that always win. The insomnia’s got claws, and it’s dug in deep. There’s another bottle on the shelf—more pills, these ones for sleep, heavy artillery for nights like this. I might pop one tonight, maybe two, chase them with a prayer that they’ll knock me out before the regrets come crawling back. But for now, I’m awake, raw and ragged, staring down the barrel of another day in this city of angels with clipped wings.

Los Angeles is here, sprawling, festering, a labyrinth of shattered dreams and soulless hustlers. And I’m here too, just another speck of dust in the wind, clinging to my pills, my bourbon, my regrets. The fan keeps spinning. The clock keeps ticking. And somewhere out there, the city laughs, low and cruel, as it swallows me whole.