Dream Come True
A pill cutter and a bottle of ginko. These were the items on a rather abbreviated shopping list, scrawled out on the back of an old dry-cleaning receipt that I pulled out of my blazer pocket. A list that short didn't warrant the trouble of searching for a pen and a scrap of paper. But somehow, by seeing the list set in drying ink, I was able to establish my resolve. Today, armed with this list, I will become the master of my fate.
It's only a zero-sum-game if you're breaking even. Fairness. Yet another multisyllabic word that's nothing more than a jumble of vowels and consonants to me now. A lot like justice. If you've ever been asked to define the concept of justice, you know what I'm talking about. It's an exercise in futility. We all cruise through life thinking that we know what's fair and what's just...what's normal. You're seven years old, in a classroom full of children, they are making you read stories about people with names like Jan and Ted and their little three-letter world. But your little mind can't focus because you're staring out the window at a multisyllabic world full of people and places and things that are so much more interesting than Jan and Ted who are telling their dog, Pug, to "Run, Pug, run." So you find yourself sitting in a doctor's office. Your parents standing across the room, conversing with the doctor in low voices. The doctor is talking to them but he's looking at you. And when he comes over to talk to you, he has a superfluous smile stitched to his face and he calls you names like sport and pal.
The pills make you like Jan and Ted. The pills make you normal. But the window still tugs at your heart as the years turn into decades. And it's not Jan and Ted anymore, it's differential equations and abstract algebra until one day you find yourself sitting at a desk in an office with your name on the door. A three-piece suit, a briefcase, an electric razor, and gourmet coffee. The blinds on the window are closed because you don't want to realize that this is not your dream-come-true. Because deep down, you know that it's their dream-come-true.
Turnabout is fair play. Dreams are fragile. I know. Because the pieces of all of mine still crunch underfoot whenever I move in life. The damage is done and it's irreparable. But I don't care about that anymore. It's not about my dreams anymore as much as it's about f##king theirs up and I'm going to start with a pill cutter.
"Cut the pills; reduce the dosage. Get yourself off of the stuff." I wish it had been my idea but it was Graham's. He'd told me this after we had sat down for a heart-to-heart in which I told him about what the CIA had done to me over the previous eight months. There was a sympathetic glimmer in his eyes and for the first time ever, I found myself actually liking the guy. I'd chosen to tell him because I knew that he had noticed the decrescendo in my work performance. You mention the CIA and eyebrows go up all around. Afterall, I needed this job and he deserved an explanation. And I deserved to get something out of the whole experience. F##k the CIA and their non-disclosure forms. I'd jumped through hoops for them for eight months only to have them can me despite the fact that I was multi-lingual and faster, stronger, and smarter than any of their other recruits. They wouldn't tell me why. They never tell you why. But I knew it was the Ritalin. You take it for twenty years and no matter how competent you are, people always treat you like you're a f##king half-wit when they find out.
It's only a zero-sum-game if you're breaking even. Fairness. Yet another multisyllabic word that's nothing more than a jumble of vowels and consonants to me now. A lot like justice. If you've ever been asked to define the concept of justice, you know what I'm talking about. It's an exercise in futility. We all cruise through life thinking that we know what's fair and what's just...what's normal. You're seven years old, in a classroom full of children, they are making you read stories about people with names like Jan and Ted and their little three-letter world. But your little mind can't focus because you're staring out the window at a multisyllabic world full of people and places and things that are so much more interesting than Jan and Ted who are telling their dog, Pug, to "Run, Pug, run." So you find yourself sitting in a doctor's office. Your parents standing across the room, conversing with the doctor in low voices. The doctor is talking to them but he's looking at you. And when he comes over to talk to you, he has a superfluous smile stitched to his face and he calls you names like sport and pal.
The pills make you like Jan and Ted. The pills make you normal. But the window still tugs at your heart as the years turn into decades. And it's not Jan and Ted anymore, it's differential equations and abstract algebra until one day you find yourself sitting at a desk in an office with your name on the door. A three-piece suit, a briefcase, an electric razor, and gourmet coffee. The blinds on the window are closed because you don't want to realize that this is not your dream-come-true. Because deep down, you know that it's their dream-come-true.
Turnabout is fair play. Dreams are fragile. I know. Because the pieces of all of mine still crunch underfoot whenever I move in life. The damage is done and it's irreparable. But I don't care about that anymore. It's not about my dreams anymore as much as it's about f##king theirs up and I'm going to start with a pill cutter.
"Cut the pills; reduce the dosage. Get yourself off of the stuff." I wish it had been my idea but it was Graham's. He'd told me this after we had sat down for a heart-to-heart in which I told him about what the CIA had done to me over the previous eight months. There was a sympathetic glimmer in his eyes and for the first time ever, I found myself actually liking the guy. I'd chosen to tell him because I knew that he had noticed the decrescendo in my work performance. You mention the CIA and eyebrows go up all around. Afterall, I needed this job and he deserved an explanation. And I deserved to get something out of the whole experience. F##k the CIA and their non-disclosure forms. I'd jumped through hoops for them for eight months only to have them can me despite the fact that I was multi-lingual and faster, stronger, and smarter than any of their other recruits. They wouldn't tell me why. They never tell you why. But I knew it was the Ritalin. You take it for twenty years and no matter how competent you are, people always treat you like you're a f##king half-wit when they find out.
posted by Reckless at 8:00 AM
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