Take the Pill

Do you ever wake with paresthesia? If it’s in the leg, and there’s an urgent urinary matter, you’re likely dreading the twenty hops and hobbles to the bathroom without all of you collapsing from the pressure—all the worse if you experience “pins and needles” as your leg nerves “awaken”.

Another suspect could be the swollen right pinky finger that your sleepy head was crushing for about two hours.

How is this little guy still able to “come back to life” and work properly after that? is my thought at each occurrence after checking that I didn’t break it.

I’m sure the mind could mimic this sensation when restoring our competency and cognition from any number of stressful situations, like that unrewarding work hangover. Been there many times.

You could be like me where this feeling is chronic and, out of a semi-hypochondriatic habit, you document the hourly level of numbness for the future medical historians to fascinate over in an obscure little black notebook that you accidentally stole from an airport bathroom. Long story short, I was in the bathroom. There was an abandoned Moleskine notebook. My flight was called 40 minutes early. I bolted, outputting an automatic “pardon me” to break through crowds of 1 to 50 people; even one person in the hallway was too many at that point. I made boarding. Yes! And then found the notebook still in my hand once I was up in the dark clouds. Oh blessed blisters! Why are you like this?!

It was empty so perhaps I was meant to have it. I’ve been told that sometimes things just come to people, particularly when they’re in need.

As a quality assurance manager and creative, I have many notebooks. That little black notebook is my least favorite of all written pieces though. It sits on the bookshelf disguised by the published varieties while the “creatives” hang on my walls as written artwork, some of them framed, and my lab notebooks remain at the office. That black one— it is the least valuable, bounded-item on the shelves in comparison to the contents the others hold on their pages, but it could hold its own for the future. Maybe. Sometimes I stash money in the other books so they have that inconspicuous advantage as well.

So…I think you have read 387 words by now while my mind has stalled over today’s first entry. The nerves are having a surprisingly good day and I’d rather work the pottery wheel than give the hour’s account of the lack of feeling that I am not currently experiencing in my right arm. There’s no diagnosis or cause unfortunately, like many unexplainable things in life.

I choose instead to slide on my disgusting Crocs and head next door to the studio where, upon entering, I greet my tabby cat, Speckles.

“Well, someone snoozed through their alarm”.

My characteristic sass wakes him and he stretches while stiffly climbing down off the wheel—I’ll never understand his preference for a metal machine over all the softer furniture in the apartment. Today, I have decided to attempt to throw and sculpt a puzzle jug. It will be an entertaining pitcher to have on the table for when friends visit. I can just imagine the mess I will have to clean up from their failed efforts in using it so only water will be served in that pitcher.

At five thirty, a spout and a vase-like vessel await a day of drying while I am at work. I will pull and attach the handle once the vessel is carved and refined tonight. My ruddy blue Crocs are retired for Merrells to handle the icy sludge outside and the long days on my feet.

As I shovel a So Delicious peach coconut milk yogurt and bowl of Special K into my mouth I browse job listings. Speckles scampers into the dining room, obviously having one of his episodes. His tail is twitching and he leers back at it before vigorously lunging this and that way to escape its chase. I have questioned if cats can have Schizophrenia, but it is not a thing, and like me with doctors, no vet has cured his issues either. When he calms down, he sits in my view staring at me provokingly, unamused at my priorities. I get up to distribute his breakfast items then finish getting ready and leave for the day.

In commute, I make conversation with the man on the Pimsleur CD that blares through the car speakers.

“This is unit 5C of Pimsleur’s Polish one. Listen to this conversation,” instructs a monotonous voice.

A man with a higher voice asks, “Przepraszam. Gdzie jest ulica długa?” I repeat the question aloud and feel as though I am simultaneously mocking and insulting him since no one would ask where a road is located in their own city area if they are driving on it. Not even a foreigner living in Poland.

The lesson concludes after 30 minutes and I arrive at work prematurely by an hour and 40 minutes, pulling into a parking space so that the back of my car faces the building entrance. It may be ridiculously early, but I just can’t stand to be late at all especially with my tendency to make wrong turns even on familiar routes. I spend the time reading and sketching until the rat race starts appearing around 7:45. When I do enter the lab, there is a five-inch stack of safety compliances and methodology revisions in my bin for review. On my keyboard, rests the latest project report where I had left it on Friday. I urge the day to be at least somewhat diverting, but I don’t expect much.

Five o’clock on the dot my workday concludes and I walk out of the building entrance to my car noticing a white canister in its tail pipe.

‘Oh that’s a bonny of a prank’ I huff.

I shove my belongings onto the tan leather passenger seat then go to the back of the car bending at the knees to pull the canister out. It is ceramic and resembles a giant, opaque white capsule pill. I hold it up to my ear and shake it. A light weight item shifts around inside. I call security to check the external cameras, but they remark that no one had been sighted around my car. Hoping it was just some harmless mischief, I drive home, the pill next to my Kedzie bag.

It’s nine in the evening as I wind down. Between dinner, the construction of the puzzle jug, and a hilarious choreography attempt at Hwa Sa’s Maria, I had repressed the ceramic pill incident. As I squeeze a line of toothpaste onto the toothbrush, the tubular shape of the paste jogs my memory, but the day’s long gone to worry about that pill now, so I don’t.

An entire week goes by at work and no one says a word about the ceramic pill, not upfront nor in eavesdropping.

“Just throw it away. Problem over,” I muse one night after writing my last entry in the little black book.

The numbness in my right arm had returned nearly five days ago on top of now having two items that brought distraught to my life. I had stored the ceramic pill on the bookshelf and I grabbed it after I replaced the little black book. Immediately, I noticed discoloration around where my fingers held it. A chemical reaction was happening. Without delay, I placed the ceramic pill in a plastic beaker from under my kitchen sink and washed my hands. Checking my right hand, which I had used to grab the little black book and the ceramic pill, it did not appear any different than before—perhaps the reaction was not a physical danger.

Mildly disquieted, I went to search through my collection of lab equipment, in particular, I sought a portable skin pH meter from my time in dermatology. I wanted to test my skin before and after holding the little black book as it was the only thing I had touched before the ceramic pill.

I read my pH at around 6 then picked up the book to transfer its questionable exterior substance onto my hand. Took another reading and—

“Oh my—why is it so acidic!?” The meter read 3.

I grabbed the ceramic pill again and watched the reaction deepened into an oily purple…with words taking form. Break me. Which I involuntarily did as the pill fell from my shocked hands. Ceramic shards covered the floor, but I could only gape at the white, tri-folded piece of paper that had been released.

I washed my hands again then picked up the folded paper. My face felt sickly cold when my eyes saw a check for $20,000 inside. I looked around the room, outside the windows, and then sat down at my table, clothed in a bohemian red, white, green, and blue floral animal design. There was no signature as it was a cashier’s check, and the letter was typewritten:

I hope this vessel reached the correct person.

My inner monologue concurred.

Foremost, don’t worry, this is a friendly message. There won’t be any writing on the wall.

Second, ten years ago, you should know that I planted the journal for you in the airport bathroom. Given your profession, it seemed like you would take responsibility for returning an unaccompanied notebook to the owner. In congruence to your bathroom run, I rescheduled your flight some minutes earlier in hopes that you would rush to the terminal with the journal in hand. In time, I would plant one more item for you, which you have found.

At the time, I knew that you were flying to America to receive treatment. After nearly $20,000 were spent to try to diagnose the discomfort in your right arm, I learned in the aftermath that you were left with no solutions but to bear it. The payment would be burdensome.

I wanted to help while remaining anonymous, therefore, I planned my intentions out so that even a bright, young person like you could not fit the last puzzle piece. I apologize for this. But I hope that the check can bring some healing to a part of your life.

Also, the reaction is harmless as you probably learned. It’s just lemon and oil on the little black book, a cleaner if you will, that leaches quickly into the glaze of the ceramic pill.

Cleaning the broken pill from my kitchen floor, I try to recall the names and personalities of the doctors who had treated me. Not one name sprung to my mind to be this generous.

A few months later, Pill Giver, as I call him or her, still remains anonymous as I head to my appointment.

“How have you been since our last visit?” the neurologist asks.

My blooming smile tells it all as I stand fully healed and unburdened, grateful for an effective and affordable prescription, even if the pill was initially a bit large and ceramic.

At home, I take the little black notebook from the shelf and hang it on the wall. It now holds a first-rate story.