I straighten my skirt, lining it up exactly to the horizontal red line from the laser square I set up on the dining room table, splaying across my legs like a hairline gash. I go to my bedroom to put on my earrings and inject myself with 20cc of detomidine. I miss the vein the first time and simply shoot it all into the muscle tissue, so I refill the syringe and inject it directly into the center of my pupil.

I go to the mirror and smile brightly. You’ve still got it, girl. I pause for a moment and worry that I may have taken too much detomidine to simply go to the grocery store, but I try and pass the “heel to forehead” test. Built like a sarcophagus. Steel-Vein Samantha, that’s what they used to call me back in primary school.

I have a little extra time, so I meander over to the kitchen to look for my diaphragm. A girl can never be too careful at the supermarket. I open up a cupboard to get a face full of ground pepper. Not wanting to sneeze, I inhale deeply, coating the inside of my lungs. I idly wonder when I had enough time to fill the cupboard top to bottom with tightly packed black pepper. But there’s no time for idle anything right now, the detomidine is starting to take hold. I can feel its icy black fingers grappling onto the base of my spine, coddling and wrapping the nerves like spaghetti. I feel brackish, and then bold. I shudder. This is a very good day, I think, as the sun shines through the dried animal skins over the window pane, illuminating the wall with an auburn cracking glow.

My hair begins to hurt, and I lie down. I do a shot of tequila laced with camel hair and cough it up all over my sporty top. I realize if I am ever going to go to the grocery store, it should be now. I go.

I come back.

I put away the groceries, but cannot figure out where to put the five heads of lettuce, so I eat them raw and meowing.