"dopamine hole" - a short story for you - by Josh Czuba

The perfect amount is an elusive, though very real, quantity of marijuana that equates roughly to about 25 milligrams or 0.025 grams. It’s the amount that fits in a one hitter and I know this only because that’s precisely how much I need. I am sitting in an apartment that is not my own. I am not a trespasser or stowaway or squatter. I am the eldest son of two well-to-do therapists who’ve invested in a high rise luxury apartment where I am currently sprawled on a couch that’s really more of a chaise. The apartment is never referred to as my apartment, as it is in fact, not my apartment, but instead bears the more ambiguous moniker: the unit. I am in here. It’s a Sunday and I wish it wasn’t. Floor-to-ceiling windows emit glorious rays of Chicago sunshine but every fiber of my inert body craves for overcast nothingness. A beautiful day is nothing but the pressure to do something with it. I just need the perfect amount. That would do it. I’m in something of a tight spot because I’ve alread

The perfect amount is an elusive, though very real, quantity of marijuana that equates roughly to about 25 milligrams or 0.025 grams. It’s the amount that fits in a one hitter and I know this only because that’s precisely how much I need. I am sitting in an apartment that is not my own. I am not a trespasser or stowaway or squatter. I am the eldest son of two well-to-do therapists who’ve invested in a high rise luxury apartment where I am currently sprawled on a couch that’s really more of a chaise. The apartment is never referred to as my apartment, as it is in fact, not my apartment, but ins