The Procedure

Stacy stood on the sidewalk in front of the mall waiting for her friend Michael. She was meeting him for a few minutes before he started work.

For what seemed like the thousandth time that day Stacy looked at her bank balance on her phone. The money was still there, $20,000. She couldn’t believe that she had actually won money with that silly lottery ticket she bought while picking up beer. She kept checking the balance to remind herself it was true.

Because it wasn’t just that she had won, but that she needed it so badly right now. For what she wanted to do. She needed the money and she needed Michael's help.

He showed up a few minutes later and kissed her on the cheek,

“You okay?” he asked with the same look of concern everyone seemed to be wearing around her these days.

She chuckled and said, “No, of course not. How could I be?”

He flinched. “Right. I’m sorry.”

“Did you talk to your friend? Will he do it?” Stacy asked.

Michael scratched the back of his neck and paused, clearing his throat.

“He said he’ll meet with you. He will. But I think there’s someone you should talk to first.” Michael pulled a small black book out of his inner jacket pocket. There was a pen clipped to the front. He opened to a blank page, wrote down some info, then tore the page out and handed it to Stacy.

“What's this?” she asked, puzzled.

“This is a woman I know. Her name is Kate. Meet with her. When you do you’ll understand why.”

“Did she have the Procedure done? Is that why you want me to call her?”

“Just talk to her. Then let me know if you still want to do it.”

-X-

Stacy didn’t waste any time calling Kate. They arranged to meet the following day at the park.

When Stacy arrived at the park she found Kate sitting on the bench where they agreed to meet. Kate was an older woman, probably in her 60’s, with gray hair and glasses. She was looking at the asphalt beneath her feet, completely disinterested in the activities of the park goers surrounding her. It was to be expected.

‘Hi, Kate? I’m Stacy.” Stacy held out her hand.

Kate looked up at Stacy, using her hand to shade her eyes from the sun. She didn’t take Stacy’s hand.

“Yes, I’m Kate.”

“May I sit next to you?’ Kate asked.

“You may do as you like. I couldn’t care less,” Kate said, not with disdain or malice, but with a pure indifference that made Stacy feel uneasy.

“I’m guessing you want to know about the procedure I had done,” Kate said, wasting no time.

Stacy swallowed awkwardly, “I guess so...” she answered uncertainly.

“I did have it, you know? They call it the Procedure, but that’s not really accurate. They shoot you up with a clear liquid mixed with drugs, heroin or dilaudid or something. Then you sit in a room surrounded by flashing lights and a steady, low hum. Uncomfortably low, like a rumble you can feel in your bones.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Stacy almost whispered, “And then you feel nothing?”

Kate rolled her eyes. Again, it wasn’t an insulting or dismissive gesture. It was too...it lacked subtext. It was a superficial gesture born of years of social conditioning. Stacy could tell it meant nothing, but to her it still meant...something.

“It’s not instant and it’s not nothing,” Kate said. “They remove your ability to emotionally connect to other people, but they don’t...excise your emotions. I still feel wonder at the ocean, or disgust when a rat crosses my path. I just... couldn't give two fucks about you or this conversation.”

“So, what did you feel after it was over?” Stacy asked.

Kate pondered her answer, as though she was trying to recall a distant memory. “I think I actually cried. I mean, I remember crying. I just don’t remember why.”

Stacy sat in silence considering what Kate was saying.

“Can I... can I ask why you did it? I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. I just...I know why I would do it; I wonder why other people choose to.”

Kate leaned back on the bench and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket. She offered one to Stacy who declined.

After lighting the cigarette, taking a deep drag, and then blowing it out Kate began telling her story.

“I had one son with my husband before he passed. His name was Jack. Like his father, Jack died pretty young. He and his wife were 22 when they were killed in a car accident. They had a baby at the time, Milo. I was the only family Milo had so it fell to me to raise him. I assume I must have loved him, though it’s hard to remember.

“When Milo was 20, he moved in with some friends in Philadelphia. He started partying, getting into drugs. Within a few years he was addicted to crystal meth. He chased that dragon for the next ten years.

I watched as a young girl, four or five, walked by us, dragging her father by his hand. She had blonde hair and was wearing a pink unicorn onesie with the hood hanging down her back. She was excited to show her dad something. He trailed behind laughing at his little girl’s excitement.

Stacy flinched, then looked at Kate who seemed to be oblivious to the girl, or really anyone in her vicinity. She barely seemed aware that Stacy was there. She was telling her story while staring straight ahead and smoking her cigarette.

“I think it must have been hard to see Milo like that, all wasted and hopeless. I think he was losing his battle and I couldn’t bear to watch. I think that’s why I did it. Or maybe someone told me that’s why.” She shook her head, as though shaking off a memory. “Milo was killing himself and I was afraid it would kill me to lose him. He was all I had left of his father and my husband.”

She didn’t say it in a way that made Stacy feel sorry for her. She couldn’t. Everything about her story, all of it was presented matter-of-factly, without a shred of sadness or regret...or anything.

Stacy had met other people who had the Procedure. Despite the illegality of it, those who chose it were not as few as one would imagine. They walked through life expressionless and virtually emotionless. The only time she had ever seen that change, seen any sign of feelings was when they were alone, interacting with nature, or sometimes animals, though some even severed that connection.

Talking to Kate was disconcerting. Stacy felt uneasy as she watched this woman recount a tale of sorrow that she no longer had any connection to.

“It’s weird at first, you know?” Kate said.

“What is?”

“You don’t feel anything toward anyone, but there is a compulsion to embrace societal norms. You still say “please” and “thank you.” You throw money in the bucket at Christmas. You hold the doors for people. You don’t do it because you care. You just do it because the conditioning lingers.”

Kate lit another cigarette and slumped down on the bench. “I think that’s why I tried so hard when Milo came home a few years later. He had beat the drugs. He brought a new wife and baby daughter with him. He wanted her to meet his grandmother, for me to meet his wife. So, I tried to act like I cared, because I thought I had to.

“I never told Milo what I had done, but he figured it out pretty quickly. It’s hard to fake something you have no concept of. He was furious. He yelled at me, chastised me, and then he was gone. I haven’t seen him since. We’re both better off, I guess.”

Stacy just stared at Kate blinking. She tried to comprehend what it must have been like for Kate, or for Milo.

Kate abruptly sat up and looked around, then pointed at a bench across from them and to the left.

“See that bench, under that tree?”

Stacy nodded her head, “Yeah, what about it?”

“That’s where Lionel died.”

Stacy looked confused. “Who is Lionel?”

“He’s one of us. He had the Procedure. He was walking through the park one night and sat down on that bench. It was cold, freezing, and he just never got back up. He just sat there and froze to death. They found him there the next morning. He didn’t even have a coat on.”

Stacy gasped, “My god, why did he do that?

Kate shrugged and lit another cigarette.

“Nobody knows, but it happens all the time. People just walk into the ocean and drown, or step into traffic and get hit by a car. Or they just casually walk off the edge of a cliff. They think it’s because without the connection to others we have no connection to...anything. We don’t all do it, but some of us do.”

Another drag on her cigarette, “Either way, whether we give up or live to an old age we all die the same way, alone.”

And just like that Kate stood up and walked away. She didn’t say “good bye” or “nice to meet you,” she just....left.

-X-

Stacy slowly lowered herself to her knees on the grass and put her hand gently on the mound of freshly laid sod like she did every time.

She looked at the small plaque that marked the grave. They had not laid the headstone yet and this is all there was to tell her who was there.

Margaret Leeds

2023-2024"

That was it. That was all there was to tell the world about the beloved child who lay beneath that sod, that mound.

Stacy’s breath was shallow, as it was every time she came here. It was like there was a hundred-pound weight sitting squarely on her chest. To be fair, it always felt like that, but it felt more like it when Stacy was here at her infant daughter’s grave.

Stacy thought about everything Kate had said. She felt sorry for her and for Milo. She understood why Kate did what she did, but she also knew that her story was different.

Maggie was her love child. She and Ethan had tried for years to get pregnant, tried everything. They were very close to giving up and adopting, and then there she was, like a miracle. Their beautiful baby girl born into the love that Stacy and Ethan shared.

A love that couldn’t weather the storm of a child with a terminal illness. Soon after the cancer took Maggie from them it took Ethan from Stacy. She missed him, but it was nothing compared to the unbearable longing she had for Maggie; to feel her tiny pudgy hands again, to smell her baby musk.

Stacy sobbed quietly as she had every day, usually several times a day, for the last 4 months.

She thought of Kate’s cold detachment. Her aloofness toward everyone around her; her disinterest in her grandson, the child of her dead son, who she raised into adulthood. She knew this was different because Kate gave up hope too soon. There was still a chance that Milo would survive. And despite the odds he did.

Stacy could hope for no such grace. Maggie was gone. Eternally, endlessly gone, and nothing could change that.

Stacy patted the tears on her cheeks dry with the heel of her hand, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and checked her bank balance again. Still there. Then she dialed Jack’s phone number. He didn’t answer so Stacy left a message.

“Hey Jack, thanks for introducing me to Kate. It helped. I’ve made my choice. I know what I want to do.”