The Brief Paradisal (The Fever of Lust)

An uncontrollable urgent anxiety sweeps over our young protagonist.
Our prototypical young punk.
Blase, idealistic.
Recovering in a series of hospital beds throughout most of his young life, our protogonist picked up an addiction to morphine. He made friends with an anesthesiologist. They both liked The Specials. The impressionable, naive young doctor had taken pity on the pallid adolescent at his mercy. Fever dreams are a kind of wild pleasure. Pleasure borders pain. The associative property of algebra.

Some people get close to death and it motivates them. They swear they will spend every waking hour living life to its fullest. They will really appreciate all those little things that are such sweet bundles of joy.

Others who return from the brink of death lose all motivation. Our young protagonist is one of these sort.
The days become short. The days are long.
You pay no mind to the changing shades of the exterior world.
You realize something.
I can't say what.
You've got to go there to know, I guess.

-S