truth

Kevin Bannister awoke once again to the demanding clanging of his bright red alarm clock.  He reached over and clubbed the thing with his fist until it switched off.  The morning was seeping through his eyelids like a root canal.  As he exited the bed he knocked over the bottle and glass of white wine he had received yesterday for his birthday.

“Stupid stuff” he muttered, his head ringing.  Ignoring the spill that was now in the process of creating a dog piss colored stain in his carpet, he proceeded directly to the bathroom to find an aspirin. After he had done there, he entered the kitchen.  While glancing nervously at the clock he fixed himself some eggs and gulped down a glass of grapefruit juice, bitter but awakening.  He opened his pill box and ate, in order: another aspirin, a multi vitamin, a fish oil tablet, an “Acid Max”, and a Glucotine.  As the tablets slid happily down his throat, he could already feel the dredges of his intoxicated evening sliding into the clinical garbage can at the back of his head.  Kevin worked for a large health care/pharmaceuticals firm downtown and there was an abundance of pills, even in his building which was not the pharmaceuticals department.  There were medically suggested “Pill packages” that you could get for a large discount; there were “feature” pills free for all employees and there were the more infamously labeled “sample pills”.  Kevin wasn’t completely sure what all his pills were for but so far they had worked beautifully to end all the little annoyances of life.

He headed back to the bathroom, showered and squeezed into his always too small black and grey pin stripe.  Surveying himself critically in the mirror he, felt inflated.  All five feet ten inches of him seemed to fill the pane with a slightly more vigorous  and athletic presence.   Confident, he puffed out his chest a little.

“Hmmm.” now he looked too expansive.  There was a pill for that too.  What was it called, “Reductine?”  He dipped eagerly into his yellow pill box.

On his way out the door he glimpsed the car keys that had eluded him the morning before.  They were perched on the lintel above the door.  “So that’s where I threw them, how odd.” he mused the door slamming behind him.  As he exited his building and crossed to his car the bellman eyed him suspiciously.

Kevin worked across town in one of the newer skyscrapers and it was nice to have his car back.  Twenty minutes later found him pulling past the billboard that read, “A Pill A Day Keeps the Doctor away!” and into his usual place in the lot.  He glanced at his watch and opened the door.  He cursed softly as he scuffed his head on the car frame.  Funny, he hadn’t had that kind of thing happen to him since High School.  And with bad memories of high school echoing in his head he approached elevator 2 and his job.

The usual boring faces greeted him at the elevator.  He edged inside and wedged himself between a young, anxious looking accountant and a rather short, wizened version of an investments manager.  As he entered his floor he adjusted his sleeves; he was showing too little cuff.  He greeted Freddy in the next cubicle.  Freddy had given him the wine yesterday.  Freddy and Kevin had birthdays right next to each other; Kevin remembered this fact, with a slight feeling of panic.  Kevin stooped under his desk and retrieved the box of liquors his cousin had sent him.  He handed them to Freddy with his happy birthday greetings.  After being thanked enthusiastically he turned to the report that had been waiting for him all night.  The angle of the computer screen was off and so was the back on his chair.  He bent down and adjusted both.  He turned on the computer to the friendly sounds of his company’s memo.   He dug into his report.  It was like biting into an overdone waffle.  During his time typing he had to readjust the computer screen twice.  Nothing seemed to be working correctly today.  He reached into his pocket and retrieved a brown and white  ”Pick Me Up” pill.

At eleven he got his papers ready and walked down the hall to his daily conference.  Finding a seat near the end of the table, he shut his eyes and waited for everyone to arrive.  the shadows at the back of the room were ideal for shutting out the overt symptoms of too much reality.  that is, until someone turns on the lights.  This took no time at all, much to Kevin’s disappointment.  Harold, his manager, commenced his usual eager cries of, “Wake up people! Time to work!” and there was nothing he could do but oblige.  When he got up and gave his report he felt inflated like he had in front of the mirror; he readjusted his cuffs.  His suit really was too small. the Reductine really didn’t seem to be working.  After giving his report on the marketing of the latest pain killers, called “A Good Ache,” he retreated to his chair and popped himself another Reductine.  The meeting was over by two o’clock.  As he exited the conference room his manager stopped him.

“You haven’t been testing those samples called “Sprout” have you?” The manager looked concerned.

“Well no, as a matter of fact…” answered Kevin looking down at the little red headed man.

“Sure you haven’t” the manager grinned and stepped back into the shadows of the conference room.  Kevin shook his head as if trying to rid his hair of water.  What was up with the manager? What was “sprout”? Some people, he thought to himself.  Then again this was a pharmaceuticals company you had to give people a little leeway.

As he walked down the hall people kept looking at him the way the bellman had that morning.  Did I tie my tie backwards again? He ducked into the bathroom to find out.  What he saw there made him gasp.  It wasn’t his tie.  No the tie was quite smart looking.  It was the fact that Kevin’s five feet ten inch frame was no longer five feet ten inches.  It had completely left the ballpark of five feet and for that matter it would soon be leaving the realm of six.  His suit looked like something you might find in a child’s dress up closet, the seems were fraying and the sleeves fit him like a muscle shirt.  He could see the hair on his ankles.  He stepped backwards a hint of panicked understanding rising in his body like the bile in the back of his throat.   He sputtered; a sound somewhere between a very quite scream and a cough escaped his throat.  Kevin Bannister stood a whopping six feet six inches and he could almost see himself grow.

As Kevin dashed out of the bathroom he had only one thought on his mind: going home.  He careened through the corridors to his room as fast as the tower of his body would allow.  When he entered, Freddy, who was apparently on an early mission to the coffee room, gave a strangled yell and ran back to his office.  The attendant at the door cursed and muttered something into his walky-talky.

Kevin found his cubicle and leaped inside.  He searched frantically for his car keys but his eye lit first on a new bottle of pills.  The pills were accompanied with a note.  He opened the letter with feverish fingers the blood in his head pounding .

Dear Sir

It has come to our attention that a minor labeling mistake was made with some of our sample pill jars.  The item ‘Reductine’ is defective and useless.  We advise you to dispose of yours immediately.  We have enclosed the proper substance.

Management

PS. Don’t take with alcohol

PPS.  A pill a day keeps the Doctor away!

Kevin looked greedily at the bottle sitting on his desk.  He had it open before you could say “Anti-Disodine”; like blood, the tiny red tablets spattered the walls of his cubicle.  The flavors of gelatin and salt had never tasted so good on the back of his throat.

On his way home from work he threw the offending bottle out the window of his car.  And when he climbed out of the driver’s seat he did not scuff his head.  That evening he tipped all his pills, except the new “Reductine” bottle into the trash.

“Fucking Morons”  he whispered as the cascade of red and white capsules disappeared into the bin.

“Fucking stupid morons…..GODDAM FUCK…..”  his yell turned into a sob.

Kevin Bannister awoke yet another time to the piercing clanging of his red alarm clock.  He reached over to pound the life out of it but somehow his arm couldn’t reach all the way.  He rolled over and tried again still with no luck.

“Hmmm.” he rolled another time, then another.  The bed seemed to go on forever.  A cold sweat broke out on his forehead.  He cautiously opened one eye.  The huge pill bottle loomed above him.  Its lettering was magnified by the massive glass of water on his bed side table.  It read, “Reductine.”  Kevin Bannister lost consciousness and toppled down the hill that was his pillow.