LIZA

-

I rolled out of bed with a sharp thud. Stuffing in my contacts and rubbing my puffy eyes, I slowly gained consciousness of my standard-issue apartment, perfectly befitting the ideal modern woman, feminine to the extreme, an image of wifely serenity. I sighed, and thought fondly of the rustic home I had abandoned for the glamor of city life. I shook away these dangerous thoughts and took a pill from my weekly supply. 

RESET

I immediately felt a wave of ease wash over me, and a smile made its way on my face.

I flipped to Instagram, serene scrolling greeting me. Once dressed in a floof--laden concoction of pastel yellow, I stepped outside. 

As I was driving to my workplace, a baby blue salon advertising ostentatious updos of all sorts from the grimy windows, I heard my neon pink radio repeat the familiar daily broadcast: “Welcome to another day in paradise! To all citizens: Remember to stop by your closest pharmacy to have all your worries disappear! Emotions are the true disease, and we have cured them with one simple pill, to be taken whenever something unpleasant emerges! Pain is a malady of the past- so don’t keep it around!” I rummaged through my poorly made handbag and found to my relief that my pills were safely inside. I wonder where the handbag was made? Probably using child labor and sweatshops, considering how cheap I got it for… those poor kids…just like back in the war. I took a pill.

RESET

A rush of tranquility overcame me. I started my favorite playlist, grinning as my favorite song came on. I hummed along to the familiar lyrics and settled back into the vinyl-covered pink  seats. The check engine light of my car came on. 

I cursed, checking the time impatiently. Anger glazing my eyes.  I took a pill.

RESET

I grinned and fluffed my hair with my free hand in the rearview mirror. I pulled over and stuck my car in a hyper-speed charging station, scrolling online through a sea of pill-case ads and sit-com snippets. After a short eternity, I pulled out of the station and went back on the freeway, speeding recklessly in order to recoup time lost on my way to the salon. I would’ve cared about getting a ticket maybe, before the border crisis, but they hardly have enough police to keep out the undesirables nowadays, the diseased. The ones who still feel pain, hunger, famine… I took a pill

RESET

I pulled into the salon’s driveway, beaming brightly. I walked in, stopping at the desk to greet Clara, my botox obsessed middle aged boss who took her fashion inspiration from the disco re-revival celebrities of the 2030’s. “Where were you?” She asked in an acerbic tone. She sighed and took a pill. I politely waited while she refocused, my eyes wandering to the day’s client list. Our clientele was mainly the twenty-something crowd, as the older generation preferred the salons on the West Side- some of them even date back to the 2010’s, I’m told. Clara twinkled her dazzlingly bright teeth at me and directed her gaze back to me. “Now why don’t you get set up for the day sweetie? She requested peppily, directing me to my station. I complied, setting every brush and scissor in its proper place. After this was done, I opened social media, scrolling idly. I received a text on my cell from an unknown number- mildly bewildered, I clicked on it. The message read: “We regret to inform you that your mother, Nina Turner, has been injured in an accident. She was hit by a driver who was on the road while in the post-pill refocusing stage. We offer our condolences, and would like to offer you an unlimited supply of pills for the time until her most likely demise, although we do remind you to remain within your ten pill daily limit, to prevent the possibility of an overdose. We strongly advise against you visiting her during her remaining hours, as this could bestow upon you an emotional infection.``

I felt a twist in my stomach, as though a knife had gone through me. Pain echoed from every direction, threatening to consume me in its icy fire.The center of my world was fallible- was in danger? I took a pill.

RESET

I began to smile, then stopped abruptly. I had to get home. I couldn’t leave her alone… to die all alone, lost… I took a pill.

RESET

I took a deep breath, calmness overtaking… alone. I’m… so lonely. Help me, Help me oh god please help- I took a pill.

RESET 

I smirked in a daze… NO! NO! I HAVE TO GET HOME! I ran to my car and turned the key in the ignition. I tore through neon city streets with cheerful slogans and mildly risque mascots on painted signs, my face a strange sort of salty wet I couldn’t explain. HELP ME! I took a pill.

RESET

I sped onto the freeway, the sky seeming to echo her comforting face, the wind her voice, the streets her.. her… I took a pill.

RESET

“AAAAAAARGH” I screamed, my voice rough and raspy. “HELP ME PLEASEEE!” 

The sky went black and my brain felt funny. I was finally numb. “Th-thank you… I muttered.”

LATER THAT DAY: 

Dr. Anita Rodriguez

-

Is she still alive? I asked. Barely, my superior replied. “That’s the tenth one today.” I said contemplatively. Guilt twisted in my gut. “We know the findings, the devastation, the breakdown of the lymbric system sure to occur from the devastation. Why do we still prescribe these things?” I screamed in my head. “Because of rule number one!”, the dutiful part of my brain replied. “With no anger, there is no war. Do you wish to return to the battlefields of your childhood? You remember the front lines as well as anybody. I shook my head, aiming to erase the scent of bodies rotting, the faces of men, women and children made gruesome with gore, the guns in the hands of children who would not return to their schoolmates. “It all seems a bit much, don't you think?” I asked my superior quietly, my voice trembling. He smiled, warning in his watery blue eyes. “For sure! Thank god for the pills! Not sure I could stomach any of this without it.” he quipped. “Be careful.” He whispered in my ear. Then he popped a pill, and exited after he refocused. “Yeah… thank god.” I replied weakly to the man’s fading figure, slumping weakly against the metal bed frame. I paused, then covered her face with a hospital sheet. 

I took a pill.

TWENTY YEARS EARLIER

-

My eyes opened and I looked around hazily, the sky still clinging to the vestiges of nightfall. The stars winked lightly against the grayish-blue canopy above me. I plodded downstairs, the old oaken floorboards creaking. I reached the kitchen and sat down at the table. The checkered tablecloth rustled, I waited for my mother to wake with the impatience only experienced by a child, tapping my feet against the floor. I looked around the room, certain I’d forgotten something I needed to  do.. I shrugged and picked up a book that lay on the table. I’d forgotten what they looked like, with most people using cellular devices to read on these days- if they did at all. Most just scrolled through social media in their precious free time- or turned to drink. Pondering its contents, 

I picked up the object and attempted to decipher the faded text, the gold-coloured print etched the words ‘The Hobbit.” I opened the book eagerly, losing myself in the lush forests it described. 

Finally, my mother came down the stairs, dressed in a faded flowered bathrobe tied tightly around her waist. She sighed and gave me a disapproving look after opening the refrigerator door. “Lizzie, where in the world are my eggs?” I squirmed in embarrassment, looking anywhere but at her. “Crap!” I thought, cursing my faulty memory. She sighed, the new lines strewn across her faded face. She’d once been a great beauty, but the war had stolen that from her, like it had everything else. At least neither of us had been drafted yet- my mother had been carrying my stillborn sister when the draft that took my father away came, and now was saved from its clutches by the farm, whose produce she sent in UAF trucks that arrived every Sunday. I was not yet thirteen. In three years, if the war continued till then, I would be sent to the front lines as cannon fodder. I prayed to whatever cruel god existed that I would be saved from that fate every night.

 “Ping!” A phone notification pulled me out of my momentary reverie, and interrupted the scolding I was sure to receive for my slothfulness. I sighed in relief, my mousy hair falling around me like gauzy armor as I settled into the worn cushions of my chair. 

She frowned, staring quizzically at the screen. She clicked on it, surprised at the United Americas Federation colors that dotted the background. It's from the government! The war has ended! She told me with the first trace of excitement I’d seen on her face since father had been drafted to fight against the Eurasian Confederation- her face aglow with hope. Maybe he’s coming home! She said breathlessly- scooping me up into an embrace.I grinned in response. She squeezed my hand, and gazed upon the screen. 

Her eyes turned glassy as she read, and she dropped me onto the crumbling tiled floor as her knees crashed against the ground. She stared at the wall in front of her for a few minutes, sobbing. After her tidal wave of tears had banked, she turned towards me. “Good news, and bad.” She said gently.“ The war was won, but not before one last battle… where an h-bomb was dropped on the killing field, decimating all the soldiers and civilians that were on the killing grounds- your father amongst them.” I screamed to no one in particular, the sheer unfairness of it all hitting me like a ton of bricks. She held me, her sobs joining mine as we stayed there in quiet agony on that kitchen floor. 

The next day a package arrived at our doorstep. A box of pills, dropped off by a UAF truck like the kind we gave our crops to during the war. 

And that was the last day I felt.