The Tape in Franks Head

The road whipped past, slick and shining with a drizzle of rain that had been intermittent throughout the day. The reflective paint of the stripes looks like pulses, fleeting flashes of light that blipped on and off, a hidden message that couldn't be decoded in time. Frank imagined the message to be ominous, a harbinger of some sort of bad outcome. He started to count them, but it was hard to see through the metal grating that separated him from the driver and his partner. Frank shifted in his seat, the handcuffs a little too tight, and his feet were starting to go a little numb. Soon the tingling would filter in, and there would be little or nothing he could do about it, another reminder of his failure to escape the law.

All traces of his medication were slowly filtering out of his system, and the whispers in his head were rising from the dull roar of the road. In a way they were reassuring, he had been with them for so long that it was something familiar, even though the messages they conveyed weren't entirely good. Frank knew that, but the loop would continue to play until it wore him down and then he would cave to it's will. He didn't want to do bad things, but at times the mechanism would kick in, and he would see himself, detached, moving through the motions, digging the gun out of the back of the sock drawer, sticking the pistol against his head one more time. He knew this little loop would someday come to a conclusion, the tape flapping as the reel moved around and around, around and around, around and around. He began to bang is head, softly, against the side of the window, trying to loosen the voices, imaging they would escape through his ears, a wisp of smoke that would have a slight yellow trace, with the smell of burning sulphur. The smell would be unpleasant, but at least he would be free. He imagined himself soaring about the trees, floating on the ether, bodiless and ephemeral. He would be free at last, his head clear, not clouded by the numerous pills he had to take. It was a moment of respite, a break. He banged his head louder. Soon they would start to shout at him, and tell him to stop. This was a loop too. Every thing repeated. Every thing repeated. Every thing repeated.