Prescribed Pills

Today’s Forecast: Partly Sarcastic with a slight chance of pessimism and a thirty percent chance of honesty.

If anyone were to ask, which they won’t, I would tell them that it wasn’t entirely unexpected. A surprise, yes, but certainly not unforseen. I had thought she’d needed something for years. Wellbutrin, Prozac, Lithium . . . at one point I was even convinced she needed an anti-psychotic like Clozapine. So, opening her purse and seeing the little white Rx page with an illegible signature and the word Seroquel written strongly and underlined twice didn’t throw me off balance. So, what did?

The list of doctors at the top of the page in off-black Bickley Script print.

She was seeing a psychiatrist. She’d always sworn she would never seek the care of a mental health professional. Come to think of it, just last weekend she’d pronounced to all who would listen: "I’m not crazy, I’m Southern. There are no crazies or psychotics down here; we’re called eccentrics or unusual. I don’t need drugs, I need a stiff drink. Now how bout you fetch me a mint julep, sugah."

I could have confronted her. Pulled her small white paper with it’s damning print out of her patent leather bag and waved it in her smug face. Called her a liar and a fruitcake and been justified in doing so. But I didn’t. Why?

So that maybe, just maybe, she would fill the prescription and get the help she seemed to finally realize she so desperately needed.

One and Two . . . . late, as usual

The field behind our house was never a field.

It was a castle with a draw bridge and a moat and dozens of armor clad soldiers coming to save me.

It was a baseball diamond where I played third, my brother played second and our cousin, Andrew, played catcher. You had to pitch the ball to yourself, but you never struck out.

It was a jungle where wild animals lurked and us hunters would hide with our bazookas and bows and arrows waiting for our dad to blow his old elk horn so our safari could begin.

It was a an old farm being overrun by indians during the American Revolution. Johnny Redcorn Laine would tie me up and rustle the cattle, but he wouldn't get away with it. My brother would tear off after him on our only horse and save the farm.

It was lots of things; mostly dreams. But it was never a parking lot . . . .until last summer.


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I’m convinced, at times, that I’ve imagined him. Content to hide inside my own mind, conjuring the things I’ve always wanted but never found. Even in his arms I feel the need to experience everything at once.

I breathe him, I draw him in closer, I open my eyes and absorb everything I’m seeing, I kiss his lips and drink him in all the while listening closely for his heartbeat. I need to know he’s not an apparition.

One second passes, then two, then twelve, I feel him pulling away - not because it’s uncomfortable, but because even the closest of couples need personal space - and I pull him closer to me for a moment more. The moment is brief, but it’s enough. I convince myself that he’s real. That he’s here. And I hope he always will be.

But time passes too quickly when we’re together and soon it’s time to leave. I drive past a small town, an empty field, a bustling metropolis, they’re all the same no matter how different. They’re not where he is and that’s where I need to be. Until then, I will spend my life in periods of disbelief and imagination broken by stolen moments with him.

Stubbornness

"What are you doing?"

He looked up from under the table. "I'm trying to help you look for your keys."

"Give it up. It's useless. I've searched this place from top to bottom, side to side and everywhere in between."

"They're here somewhere. You drove over here, so you obviously had them. I swear to God, Sarah, you'd lose your head if it wasn't attached."

"What?!?! I've misplaced one thing. One. How does this qualify me as someone who'd 'lose their head if it wasn't attached'? And why are you so . . .so . . . ill today? Male PMS?"

He stood up and dusted off his knees, "I've got things to do today and instead of doing them, I'm crawling around the dirty floor searching for your keys."

"Well, Mr. Important, go if you've got to go. No one told you to help me look for my keys. I'll find them myself, thank you very much."

"Go? Go? How would I go? You're-still-here!"

"I do know how to work a doorknob. I think, think mind you, that I can operate a door well enough to let myself out."

"And let you snoop around my house by yourself? Oh. I see. You haven't lost your keys at all. They're probably over there in your purse. You just want to sneak and snoop and see what I've been up to. Forget it. It's none of your business any more. Get over your jealousy, get over your nosiness and get over me!"

"You flatter yourself, really. I was over you the minute we broke up. You ended it and a millisecond later I realized I could do sooooooo much better. I give you another week before you're dating girls that still feather their bangs and tight roll their jeans. You'll be cruising trailer parks and high schools and I'll be laughing my ass off. I was the best thing that ever happened to you and deep down you know it."

He gritted his teeth before grabbing his gym bag and his keys. "Fine. Let yourself out. I don't care what you do or what you find." And with that, he was out the door and slammed it for emphasis.

She threw herself onto the empty couch that smelled of him and cried. Why couldn't she just say, "I love you. I will always love you. Please take me back."

But her pride was stronger than her love.