Today, boys and girls, the secret word is . . .
PILLS!
First off, I have a piece I whipped out for my writing class. The assignment was recursion - pick a topic/phrases/images and constantly return to them throughout the writing. For a while, I had difficulty finding something on which I could discourse at length without getting dippy and abstract. The answer lay in my purse.
Pills, huh? Yeah, I've got a lot of pills. I've got round pills, oblong pills, pills in every color you can think of - from Aegean green to bacon-brown. And I know each and every one by name. I can recognize any pill on sight.
You see, I have to, because my pills on the dresser tend to spill and mix with pills from the cabinet, the drawer, the shelf, or my purse and I don't have the time to pick over the pile pill by pill and put them in their proper bottles. What I usually do when that happens is sweep them into any pill bottles I happen to have on hand. Any bottles at all. Pills by the handfull. The lables don't mean anything anymore.
So yeah, I've got a lot of pills. Pills both big and small, coated and plain, tablets, capsules filled with liquid, solid, beaded, powdered, chemical, herbal, and some with nothing at all - just an empty gelatin shell. Striped pills, scored pills, crumbly, pungent, stick-in-your-throat, big as horse-pills, chewable, prescriptions both expired and renewable.
I my pills come from physicians, surgeons, specialists, nurses, dentists, the sectioned seven-day pillboxs people keep on their bedside tables, grandmothers' purses, lost-and-founds, over the counter, under the table, pharmacists behind the counter of Walgreens who trade pills for signatures, and pharmacists behind Walgreens, in the alley, who trade pills for Andrew Jackson's legal-tender mugshot.
I never waste a single pill - never pass up, lose, or throw out a single one. You never know when you might need them. Pills, the breakfast of champions. Betcha can't eat just one! Sometimes I eat a handful for fun. I can't help it; when I see a cluster of pills lying around, glistening and innocent, waiting for the warm embrace of my esophagus, I can't help but take them in.
Pills for nausea, insomnia, fever, analgesia, anxiety, anemia, hives, migrains, back pain, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, asprin, antihistamines, narcotics, stimulants, barbiturates, sedatives, antibiotics, vitamins, diet pills with ephedra, etcetera.
By this point, of course, I know everything there is to know about pills. I know which generics and brands are the same; pills that mix well, or when mixed, kill; and all their applications, both for health and recreation.
But anyway, here's the real answer to your question:
I've got a lot of pills that once you take them, they take you. Swallow you whole. Pills to take you anywhere you want. I've got pills that deliver stillness with an opiate embrace and pills with names like Roman gldiators that keep you up for days. I've got pills instilled with formless things dredged from the gutters of your brain - PILLS - patiently waiting, stainless white, designed to drive you insane. Pills to make a heart shudder mouth dry tongue loll head churn legs fail eyelids crackle lips strip back in grimacing glee, until you scream for Mother, pass out, wake up, and pop another.
So what'll it be?
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