The inkwell fell over with a pompous thud and I rushed into our room, she lay convulsing on the hotel's outdated carpet, her cigarette being smashed into its orange patterning over and over again as her arms bounced themselves madly in her seizing state. They had told me earlier that she could be at risk, and I knew they were right, these episodes were becoming near daily. The drug and alcohol use was wearing her meds down and she was in the same danger she was at as a child, but she said she had a handle on it, as though it was controllable, the drugs helped her form plotlines and the vodka spritzers helped her discover the moods she felt her medications so often suppressed.

I rushed to sit her up firmly and began to call 911, halfway through my call to the operator she started saying "f***" repeatedly under her breath and I knew she was back, I apologized to the nice woman with the Boston accent and put the phone back on its base.

"Have a nice trip, Lydia?"
"Oh f*** off,"

She hopped off of the squeaky double mattress and began to clean up the mess of brown black India ink she had been using before the seizure had begun,

"I need a f***ing cigarette, where the f*** did I put my cigarette?"
"Into the carpet, several times."

I tried acting on the anxious witicism that came after these episodes, be they withdrawal adled nights or seizure filled mornings. She flicked her neon orange lighter and breathed in through her Malboro Light, getting full drags of fresh, nicotine, air. I released my legs and feet from their fear fixed placement beside the bathroom and the bed and walked over to the bar. I really shouldn't had judged Lydia so harshly for her use of "artistic influences", I picked up a gin and tonic as often as she picked up her vodka spritzers.

At least you can walk straight, Adam; same can't be said for your wife.

My inner voices always slammed on her, despite her original existence as a muse, now she was just a hastily done oil painting and an old flame.

I walked to the main room of the suite and sat on the wool sofa, letting myself drift back into the documentary on plants that was on the television. She bumbled her way out, barely understanding what a doorframe was, or why it was in her way.

"F***, f***, f***..."

I shot her a look; I didn't understand how she could sell so many stories when it seemed like "f***" was the only word she ever used. She flung the mini fridge door open, nearly cracking it off,

"Jesus Christ, Lydia, do you want more hotel debt to be over our heads?"
"I want some orange juice, Adammmm..."
I knew she was still coming down, she always reached for orange juice on the way down.
"Why do you always use my name, huh?"
She swunged around, long silk dress circling her ankles,
"'Lydia, Lydia, Lydia', it's so patronizing,"
She walked towards me, breasts damn near swaying on the way,
"YOU'RE F***ING PATRONIZING, ADAM"
She kissed me, spitting her orange flavoured tongue down my throat, and walked away,
"Who the f*** says someone's name that often... f***ing fake... f***..."

She mumbled as she walked back to her room and got back to inking the rough illustrations for the next short, sold, story; she'd be sending the scripts off to the Post early next week, and then it was off to the next town to try to scam a poor, crumbling hotel in the inner downtown.

These days I don't know why I stayed, she was always high or on the way down from a high, and when she was coming down, she was drunk. She was wrinkling beyond normal and seizures were normal, despite what I told myself; despite my shock after each one. Each one still felt like the first, the fear, the rationialization and the phone call to help. I could barely stand it, I felt like an illustration I had seen in a magazine that the last hotel had provided, a man who was peeling the skin off of his face, leaving his eyes to witness the blood and muscle leaking from his new wound, I was in a constant breakdown, a constant insanity plea. But we kept going. "Don't look back", right? It was a comforting, ride or die wish, but now I wish I had looked back, or at least looked down, to see what we were doing.

I heard her swearing her way through her outlining of dark figures, and I fell asleep on the wool sofa to the hum of
"Plants feel things too, as live beings they have a form of a nervous system, an experiment was... conduc... on... pla..."

As the television skipped words and I fell; Lydia fell out the 24th story window and I realized that she had put anthrax in my gin and tonic when her tongue met the back of my mouth.

F***.