Seven more hours until my next fix. Why wasn’t I the one buried and gone? The dust helps.
Today’s board meeting was excruciatingly slow. I counted my heart beats like the clicking of an annoyingly loud speedometer. Action items and follow-ups could be so anti-productive. I’m sorry, Lena, and I miss you. Ugh! I pinched the veins on my inner wrist to stay focused.
Where are you, 5:30?
Siobhan stacked three new cases on my already high pile. A few short years ago I would have been reeling at the prospect of a bigger caseload. No Prozac, then. No pain. No guilt. Just ambition. Now I was drowning in the heap on my desk. I worked through lunch, hyper aware of the debilitatingly slow lapse of time. Countdown to the dark magic. I couldn’t stop thinking of it. And of her. Lena. How wonderful it was to be a little person’s everything. She would have just started kindergarten. The accident was as vivid as the file I was trying to bury my head in, my eyes eagerly reading the mechanical font. Work helped until it didn’t. Then my prescriptions would pick up the slack. Or so my therapist said. But the pain seemed to leak off my person and fall around me wherever I was, staining everything it touched. It was all over the file in front of me. Damn! I called the Magician. Three more hours.
I spent two hard hours in court spitting technical jargon that once excited me. Certiorari. Bona Vacantia. Fancy words that made my Torts class feel classy. I’m representing a guilty client. But my conscience died a long time ago so what did it matter? If I was still a shoe-in at my job – somewhere deep down, I still hoped – then he wouldn’t be the least bit guilty when the gavel dropped.
I was off the clock. I need a stronger prescription. Behind the wheel, I kept looking over my shoulder. Hah! No, stupid, the cops aren’t following you.
5:30pm. Corner of Hawthorne and Winthrop. Collect dust.
“Always on time…I like that about you.” He gave me a flirty grin, handed me the parcel and took the cash. I pursed my lips in a thankful smile and sprinted back to my car, a sudden fear of my surroundings and the anticipation of my parcel at my heels. The traffic on the west side highway home ramped up my anticipation, the blaring of horns and revved engines...angry drivers...filling my head.
I pulled into the parking garage, the drag of my day awaiting its reward. Almost there. Just two flights of stairs between me and my new happiness.
“You’re a couple weeks past due, Metz!” Does Jerry have to say something to me every time we see each other. He waved a stubby index finger at me, his hand holding a rusty wrench, “Not like you to be late.” It was all I could do to shrug at him as I climbed the stairs to my apartment. I just paid him. Three hundred big British ones, too. Whatever. I don’t have time for his misplaced assertion right now. He should have been a cop, with all his unwanted and bossy remarks. I couldn’t get my door open fast enough. Click. Turn. Halle-fucking-lujah! Privacy at last.
I plopped onto the sofa and anxiously pulled out my expensive treat. The Magician said it’s the best fairy dust this side of the river.
*Snort* Eyes closed, brows wrinkled. One. Two. Thre— Poof! There it was! Ahhh.. I don’t even need to breathe. Freedom. Light. “Magic” I hear myself mutter to the empty living-room as I slump backwards. Why hasn’t this been approved by the FDA yet? Prozac paled in comparison, I don’t even refill my prescription anymore. But, damn, I really oughta pay more rent.
I’m sorry, Lena, I miss you.
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