desensitized

[note: this is a different style, I'll try a version of this more like what I usually write as well]

The light woke him up. It didn't seem sunny outside, but it wasn't too cloudy either. He pulled himself upright and got out of bed, then showered, got dressed, and went into the kitchen. He felt numb as he cut up some fruit and poured out some orange juice.

While eating breakfast, he turned on the news. He opened up his pill case and started watching. Taking small sips, he swallowed a red pill (terrorists had bombed a foreign embassy), a yellow pill (drug-resistant tuberculosis cases had risen in Africa by thirty percent over the last six months), and three orange ones (an elderly man who competed in a break-dancing competition and won, a three-year old boy who knew the names of every pope, and a cat who could speak on command). He then refilled each part of the case from the tap to make sure he wouldn't be caught in public without the appropriate pills.

On the subway, like most riders, he kept the case in his backpack. By the time he arrived at work he felt numb again, and looking around, so did everyone else coming in. He wondered what it'd be like if the subways ran smooth enough for him and the other commuters to take their pills without accidents, but decided he'd rather stay clean until he had to work anyway. He sat down at his desk, saw the red border on his monitor indicating a violent event, swallowed a red pill dry, and began translating from shorthand when the assignment (guerilla fighters had robbed a bank in Guatemala, killing six people) opened up.

He felt sad, not angry, as he translated, but it was all right. So long as he could identify his emotional state as a negative one, he could be confident the medication was working, even if his own neurochemistry was, for some reason, playing tricks on him that morning. He reconsidered the idea of risking spilling his pills on the subway in the future to keep as regular a state of medication as possible and kept working on the stories. After five minutes, he was done, and the next story (coded green; atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases had decreased by 8% over the last year) came up.

He had a hard-on at that story. Somehow greenhouse gases were leading to arousal. He'd heard about this sort of thing happening before, but he didn't think it'd happen to him, even though he knew that peoples' reactions to the drugs were sometimes unpredictable. Most of the time, particularly when the drugs worked, he accepted that; small price to pay for a quiet life with the right amount of passion, he thought.

But after the erection subsided and his transcription was done, a yellow story about a bank robbery came up. He was anxious, and whether it was the story or the drug, he couldn't tell-- and it didn't matter. It was enough for him that he wasn't sure what he would feel at every single moment to make him even more unsettled. He was, perhaps for more than one reason, on very uncertain ground.

When a pink story about a husband and wife reunited after both thought the other dead in a fire brought him to choked, anguished sobs, however, he started connecting his emotions to his thoughts. It wasn't sad that they were reunited; the tragedy lay in their reactions. He knew they, like he was before, must have not felt anything until instructed to feel. Marriage was meant to be for a lifetime-- meant to change two peoples' lives-- and now, it no longer even touched their hearts.

He stopped working. He thought about what a poet laureate of the city had said to him once. He realized how boring the poet had been, how he'd confused foreign languages for profound ideas, and it made him sadder. He stood up.

"DO YOU REALIZE WHAT WE'RE ALL DOING?" he asked. Everyone kept working, and the receptionist, with a worried look on her face, picked up the phone.

"WE'RE TAKING MEDS TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT MEDS TO TAKE!"

Everyone's screen flashed red. Everyone swallowed a red pill. Everyone rolled their eyes and got back to work.

"DON'T YOU SEE HOW FUCKED THIS IS?" He left the desk. He couldn't believe how easily everyone else accepted this. There was so much to be sad about; how could his co-workers agree to be what others told them to be? He kicked over a wastebasket and punched a glass-framed picture, doing nothing more than bruising his hand, crying all the time.

A policeman entered and shot him. He fell back into his seat. The policeman walked up to the chair and quickly removed the dart.

"It's all right. How do you feel, sir? Breathe deeply for a few moments."

He breathed deeply for a few moments.

"I'm fine now. What, um, happened?"

"You were taking the wrong medication."

"Oh. Oh my God. I had--"

"I know. Your dispenser wasn't working properly today. It happens once in a while, sir. We got an alert only after your shift began. We were coming here to warn you."

"So you're not bagging me?"

"Did you do something else, sir?" The policeman stiffened up a bit.

"No. I didn't even take the pills in the subway, so I didn't even know there was anything wrong-- then."

"Well. Just sign off on this report, and we'll be on our way."

The policeman held out a pad with a stylus. He signed.

"Thanks, officer."

"I'd recommend taking a sample before leaving for work. Just to be sure. And you can stop at a pharmacy and explain to them what's going on."

"Right. Thanks again, officer."

They replaced his pills, called their dispatcher, and left. Those who'd taken their yellow pills breathed sighs of relief. Things could have gone much worse.

He, meanwhile, while numb, had nonetheless thought quickly and realized two things. First, within the office, people were going to always consider him suspect if he showed any emotions they didn't expect. Second, with the sort of experience he'd gone through, especially as publicly as he had, even the emotions they did expect would be viewed negatively by his co-workers. That led him to one conclusion.

He took the pills and threw them in the trash. They were purely optional, after all, so long as he was stable. He could be certain of his stability while numb. It was better, he'd realized, to be desensitized, reliable, and secure. Emotions, controlled or not, were too messy.

He'd rather do without.