I didn’t know banks were still open, my lucky day. Breathing is so damn hard. I see the mop bucket and bleach bottle, I can’t smell them, but I remember.

Everything is out-of-focus. I need air.

“Give me the fucking money.”

She sounds like a hurricane and overpowers the tasteless instrumental pop.

“Stop crying. Fuck, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone, fuck.”

Everyone is wearing masks and gloves… It makes this part easier, cleaner.

“Just the register. Fast, fast, fast.”

Bartenders don’t get paid if they don’t work.

Outside — in the rust bucket Honda Civic I got off that drunk — the streets are empty, no good; Asheville is a small town. If the teller calls the cops I’m done.

The dirt bike is in the culvert next to the public hospital. It is easy to blend in. So much death. The parking lot smells like piss and a there is a bum sleeping on the splintered asphalt.

He isn’t snoring and his lungs sound good, I wish I could fucking breathe. I wish I had good lungs, need to lay off the skunk. How does this bum live next to a fucking den of infection and I get it?

I know I’m dying. I know I have it. I know. Whatever, death, jail, at least Camille gets some money.

I love her.

I wish I would just die already.

If I don’t get caught I’m doing the same shitty thing tomorrow.

I wish I would just die, but I remember.

Photo by Tai’s Captures on Unsplash