Panic

 

Panic

I take another tablet from the bottle and mush it under my tongue before I have time to second guess myself. Was this one, this second or third, was this a choice? To take a fourth pill between my gums and oral frenulum is as much a choice as the fifth or second, but, at what point is the choice an illusion? Was the first pill the only choice? The prescribed amount, the recommended dose, the singular round blue chalklette. Once, daily. Until once daily isn’t once, daily, but rather once, more than daily. The choice was mine, man, I could stop at like, any time, you know? But, I don’t want, or the bottle says, like, once daily as per doctor’s orders. Prescription, state-sanctioned high before the choice of relapse is given and the door is propped ever so slightly open. Thin yellow crack of light leading to the rickety old steps of the basement. Down the steps we go, each floorboard creaks. Thump, thump. Remember how it was back then? What brought you here in the first place? Did you really get panic attacks before the drug abuse, or are you misremembering the story. You and dad in the hallway, your fingers grasping at your long black hair, he across from you on the carpet half-lucid wondering what’s wrong with my son. You, the son, arisen from a dream where you died and subsequently woke up with a heart attack or stroke or aneurism or the rapture. It was happening All So Fast. But why? What were you doing that night? Weren’t you on the roof with your clothes in a neat pile by the exit gripping the world’s shittiest joint rolled out of a page from my Eight-grade graduation Bible. Dusty thumper actually useful for once. Some verse in Ecclesiastes. This week’s passage turned ritual. The air was thick up there and there were adults somewhere, surely, maybe at any second they’d come and, what? Arrest me? The police? Okay, that’s enough for me, man, can I have a hit of your cologne, or like, three, before we leave?

Can dad smell it right now as I die? They’ll overlook that for sure. Those were the thoughts I had. When I was dying. Can he smell it?

And so maybe the disorder came from the root, and the root is the cure in a sense but it’s an ouroboros of disease that never leaves. What’s the phrase? Pushups in the parkinglot? Loitering in the pharmacy, waiting for them to call my name from the line. Have you used this medication before, they ask.

No, I reply. If I was truthful I’d tell them all I’ve ever wanted was to be prescribed this. The soft glow everything gets when it kicks in, the calmness. 

It is a benzodiazepine, he says, It is a sedative. Do not drive while on this medication. Do you have any questions? He struggles to unfasten the cap to show me that in fact, I am not dreaming, this is not a test, this is it. Ten emergency use round tablets in half-milligram. Lorazepam. Total of five milligrams in the whole tube. 

Use once daily, as needed. He tossed the maraca into a paper bag and stapled it shut. 

Okay, I said calmly, I will. Refill every thirty days, I note.

It was cold and I had my jacket on. In the pocket I was able to tear it open and, with some effort on the way to the car, one-handedly, remove the childproof cap. Slid my finger in to scoop and brought one out and ready. By the time I reached my car the cap was back on and I’d brought the little blue button out. There was a breeze in my hair, a chilly gust. It sat in my palm with the letter A facing me. The sun was setting. Streetlights were coming on. A van drove by over a speed bump and their suspension squealed. Anything but putting it in my mouth. Still outside, my nose is cold. Ahh, can’t do much harm. Just a pill. Doctor’s orders, I said. 

Now it’s a year in and the devil is waiting for me.