[This is the second of three parts of the Blue, the other two parts are called Blue (Part 1) and Blue (Part 3).]

Frenetically, he picked up empty pill bottles, took a look at them, and dropped them back into the ocean of bottles again. He was getting nowhere, and he needed his pills right now. Like a torn piece of clothing, he was coming undone and required stitching. The Blue pills were his needle and thread. Making his way from the foot of the staircase landing to the opposite end of the room, it was like a re-enactment of Moses parting the Red Sea. But instead of possessing the good intentions of Moses, his aim was to find the bottle quick and assuage his inexorable urge for Blue together with the relief it offered him.

Each empty bottle added to his dread. His face was a portrait of contorted equanimity. A thin veneer of patience hid his growing anger, because the shadow of his day job as a perfectionist still hung about him, reminding him that anger was never the solution. However, the mutinous look in his harsh brown eyes gave him away.

He was incandescent with rage. One could tell by the regular additions of force he implemented on the bottles, as he continued his wild goose chase for the elusive pill bottle which contained his escape. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a hay stack.

Yes!

Holding the bottle with trembling hands, he emptied the contents into his awaiting mouth. Already brimming on the edges of insanity, it would only take another mere second before he slipped right into the bottomless black hole of withdrawal, which was his definition of Dante’s inferno.

Spreading his arms like a freed prisoner, he could feel the adrenaline rush in his veins, the thump-thump-thump of his heart. He felt alive once more, and all the unhappiness and misery just melted away like ice on a volcano top. He was a volcano, a dormant one waiting for the right moment to erupt.

This was the moment. He felt extremely high, and nothing could get him down.

He was in a dream-like stance, lost in his reverie of Blue ecstasy and freedom. Running up the crumbling wooden stairs in a heartbeat, he burst out of his front door, like overflowing lava. The freedom he felt was so overwhelming that he almost could not contain it. Without second thoughts, he jumped into the crystal Blue swimming pool.