DIY Lamp Kit by A.S. Coomer

Dana bought the DIY Lamp Kit on a drunk. She’d ordered it online, free two-day shipping, then promptly forgot about it. That’s how some drunks are. When the little package was delivered to her front door, she’d wondered what it was. She took it to the kitchen and opened it with scissors. 

The cover on the box showed a woman’s smiling face lit by the light of a wine bottle that was now, tada, a lamp. Dana stared at the box for some time before the hazy recollection of ordering it came back. She still couldn’t remember why making a lamp had crossed her mind in the first place.

She walked to the bathroom to take her medication wondering what she’d use to make her lamp. There were plenty of empty bottles around, just not wine. Dana had never been a big fan of wine. It stained your teeth and tasted like expired juice. She liked bourbon though. Rye especially. There were a few empties in the recycling now, another getting close.

She opened the bathroom mirror and got the bottle. Dana shook two pills free and swallowed them with a palmful of water from the tap. 

Back in the kitchen she microwaved her coffee then sat down at the scuffed farmer’s table with the DIY Lamp Kit. She opened the box and removed its contents piece by piece. She unfolded the instructions and learned the names of the pieces. She read over the directions and learned how each brass piece fit together.

It’s like a functional puzzle, she thought, holding the bulb-less lamp up. Now, what to use?

She decided to drink on it.

Dana rinsed her plate in the sink, dried it off, then put it in the cabinet. The fading rays of the sun slipped between the towering oaks out back and fell in long slanted columns through the kitchen window. 

Dana turned around and leaned against the counter, letting the sun shine on her face. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, just feeling the warmth and seeing orange. The sun set and Dana stood blinking in what felt like a sudden darkness.

She crossed the room and felt along the wall until she found the switch. The first thing she saw was the DIY Lamp sitting on the shelf beside the table. 

How many weeks ago had it been that she sat at the table and put that thing together?

She’d taken to counting the weeks in bottles. 

Last week was a seven-bottle week. This was looking to be an eight or nine. 

Dana kept swearing to herself she was going to start cutting back. She knew it was bad to drink on the medications she took for her bipolar disorder but she’d tried quitting cold turkey three weeks ago and she couldn’t even hold a pen her hands shook so bad. She’d read in a Raymond Carver short story that you could stop drinking slowly by first switching to champagne. She’d never cared for the stuff but she was thinking about giving it a try. 

She walked across her little kitchen and picked up the bronze lamp. She ran her fingers along the cool metal finial. She wished she could peel away the layers of her life the way she could dissemble each piece of the lamp. Something in there wasn’t working. She’d gone off the rails, she could see it but only vaguely, like shapes through a clouded window.

When she came to, Dana was crumpled on the bathroom floor. Late afternoon sun streaked through the curtains falling all around her in shifting patterns. She watched the light and shadows dance for some time before pushing herself up into a sitting position. She held her aching head in her hands. She pressed her fists to her temples and squeezed. 

On the floor beside her was her bottle of Xanax. The cap was nowhere in sight. It was empty but two of them sat beside the trashcan. 

How many does that mean I took?

She couldn’t remember. 

Not enough, she thought, forcing herself to her feet. 

She turned on the shower then stripped down, her arms feeling twice their normal weight and half as useful. 

She’d been afraid something just like this was going to happen. 

It’d been a twelve-bottle week. Dana couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten a bite. She stepped into the shower and let the scalding water revive her numbed limbs. She let the water beat against her face until the hot water ran out. 

After she’d toweled herself dry and dressed, Dana dry-swallowed the last two Xanax then took the empty prescription bottle into the kitchen and stuffed it into the plastic grocery bag with all the others. She’d become paranoid that her neighbors could tell how bad off she was by her garbage. If no bottles of pills or booze went out they had nothing to suspect. 

She marveled at the dozens of orange RX bottles in the bag. She’d peeled off the labels so they stood naked and mostly transparent in the early afternoon light. 

She put on a pot of coffee and sat at the table watching it brew. She had some Old Grandad left and thought that’d fix it up fine. 

The lamp caught Dana’s eye and she smiled, having an idea, finally, for it. She got out the hot glue gun and the garden shears and sat down at the farmer’s table with the bag of prescription bottles. She removed each cap then carefully cut the bottles in half. She glued them, side by side, one by one, until she had a cylindrical base for the DIY Lamp. She went back around with the hot glue gun, hitting each of the seams from the outside, then set it down on the kitchen counter beside the outlet. She plugged it in then got a bulb from the hall closet and screwed it on. She half-expected it not to work but it did. 

A.S. Coomer is a writer and musician. Books include Memorabilia, The Fetishists, Shining the Light, The Devil's Gospel, The Flock Unseen, Birth of a Monster (forthcoming from Grindhouse Press) and others. His novelette Stor-All Self-Storage was published in C.V. Hunt's HORRORAMA anthology. He runs Lost, Long Gone, Forgotten Records, a "record label" for poetry. He co-edits Cocklebur Press, a micropress for "books that stick." @ascoomer www.ascoomer.com www.ascoomer.bandcamp.com