Chapter 18
Eight little round pills bask in the glow of my left palm. I count them again. Yep, eight.
Hmm . . . now spell out the word failure, Lizzie. How many letters are there?
Ok, I can’t argue with that. Psycho Voice is right. I’m a failure. Couldn’t even make it through one session with Dr. Cuckoo. Now what? God, I’m just so tired of it all! I’ve had it up to the wazoo with the rocking and the weirdo voices.
I guess I could try to follow the universal mantra of mind over matter, or, follow the famous words spoken by millions of helpful(but not really), authoritative people telling other, but more weak-minded people to, “buck up.” And I could probably do this to the bitter end of time, except, I’m not that stupid; I fully realize my mind has a mind of its own, with the result that every damn day I will forever dance on the edge of madness. Well, this time I might as well leave the land of sanity for good. Why postpone the inevitable?
I stare at the pills, becoming rather fascinated that they have taken on a muted golden glow, as if there were a halo surrounding each one. Are they beckoning to me? I reach down to caress one pill when suddenly . . . a cinematic moment flashes through my mind.
I’m sitting in an ordinary chair, in an ordinary office mumbling some nonsense or other. On the other side of an obsessively neat desk, sits Dr. Cuckoo, his slender fingers resting on a circular red button the size of a quarter. He stares at me like I’m a speck of dust on his desk. Is he disgusted? Bored? Slowly, his eyes start to close.
Horrified, (and pissed), I watch in disbelief as his forefinger accidentally on purpose presses down on the button. The floor beneath me vanishes! And I'm off . . . falling, falling, ever falling, into the never-ending darkness of eternal madness.
Damn! That's it. I immediately lay out the eight little white pills in two rows of four on top of my nightstand. Starting on the first row, I shove pill numero one into my mouth. Ah, that wasn’t so bad, was it? A few minutes go by. I argue back and forth with myself. Should I take another pill, or shouldn’t I? As time marches on, I finally make the decision. The 'should I' has it. Down goes another pill. Then I wait and wait and wait again. I don’t really know why I wait, except it seems I’m having an awful hard time deciding between swallowing a pill, and not swallowing a pill. Sigh. Why have I always been so very indecisive about things? Even parking my car can take twenty minutes.
What seems like an eternity later, I pop the third pill down. Another minute goes by before I abruptly list to the side, then rub, rub, rub the sleep out of my eyes. Can't do it. My eyes are wayyy too heavy, as if someone dropped little balls of wet cement on them. Geez, what’s up? Well . . . I think I’ll take a little nap, then resume my pill-popping. Yep, thats the ticket. I close my eyes.
A couple of hours later, I awake groggily, and find B standing by the bed, the remaining pills in one hand and a bottle of valium in the other. He doesn’t look very happy. After we exchange a few terse words, he slinks away carrying the whole kit and caboodle of medication. I don’t object, mostly because I'm an emotional block of numb—no fear, no anger, no joy, no sadness, no nothing.
Numb, meet nuts! snicker, snicker
Oh shut up you! I have to think, because it's way past time I got off my sorry, self-pitying ass and start facing some dire facts, and looking for answers on my own. Where to begin? . . . Ah ha! By burying my nose in some abnormal psychology books.
You go, girl! After all, if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. Annnd . . . if you really believe that, Lizzie, I got a luxury highrise smack dab in the middle of the Sahara desert to sell you!
