F. Martin

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F. Martin would wake up at around 5:30 in the morning and would not get out of bed until about 6:00. At 6:00 his alarm would go off on the dresser across from the end of his bed and F. would make his way over to turn it off. If he didn’t turn it off fast enough, his neighbor who he didn’t know nor cared to interact with would bang on the wall closest to the bedroom forcing F. to get up and turn off the alarm as quick as he could. He didn’t like the thought of bothering his neighbors. He would take a shower, brush his teeth, and put on deodorant. Next, he opened the medicine cabinet. Inside the cabinet were rows and rows of thin containers inside which were a series of pills prescribed by Dr. Lazarus that F. would take throughout the day. He’d take one out and another would slide down to replace it, the rest of the containers sliding down in tandem. The container had this feature where you could fold the compartments into a flatish square so he could fit it into his left breast pocket of the pale blue button-down shirt that he would wear every day to work. The clothes he’d wear for the day would be folded and placed on the toilet lid the night before, this way he could forgo the problem of choosing what kind of button-down shirt he would wear on any particular day the morning of that particular day. At the point where he was fully dressed, F. would put the pill container into his shirt pocket, along with a couple pens that he would write with. He would grab his wallet, keys, and phone from the top of his dresser. F. would come out of his room and to the small kitchen of his apartment. It would be 7:00 at this point. He would make one of three things for breakfast every morning; eggs and bacon, oatmeal and sour dough toast, or eggs and oatmeal raisin toast (if he was feeling a little better than he usually was on a given day). He would make his food then get a pill bottle on the counter which would contain his morning medicine also prescribed by Dr. Lazarus. F. had forgotten the exact names of the drugs he was prescribed but he remembered what they were for based on the color of the medicine and the time of day he took the medicine. He would open the bottle, put a pill into his hand, then down it with a glass of water. The color of his morning medicine was

RED

F. had an anxiety problem. His anxiety was something that tended to build on top of itself once it got going and it didn’t stop until F. became a blubbering, quivering mess. His anxiety came from many places but in the mornings it was overstimulation during his commute to and from his office at Harper-Collins where he would get on a train near Kingsbury Apartments to the Dover Tower in downtown Peoria. The morning crowds were a sea of confusion and suffocation to F. and the train was so much worse. Without fail, every morning, F. would find a suited gentleman talking loudly/yelling into a cellphone, a mother holding a crying baby in a blanket, a woman who would listen to music/watch a video without having the foresight to get headphones, a group of kids running around and shouting, and a homeless man who asked for directions to the military base for basic training. F. would put on headphones and listened to music which Dr. Lazarus described as ‘meaningless noise’. Even with the headphones on and music playing the passengers were able to cut through it, still giving F. a lot of anxiety. The red pill helped manage that anxiety, being a slow acting drug that lasted throughout the day. He would take it before eating his breakfast so that by the time he was heading down the stairs of his apartment building the medicine would begin to kick in. He would finish breakfast by 7:20 and be down the stairs by 7:30, taking a moment to get/check if he had everything he needed for the day before going down the winding stairs of his apartment building.

At 8:30 F. would come up from the underground subway station and go over to the newsstand just over there and get a cup of coffee, no sugar, extra cream. After taking his first sip of coffee he would head through the lobby of the Dover Tower, take the elevator up to the 35th floor, then went to the front desk of a subsidiary of Harper-Collins that specialized in various publication needs, particularly textbooks at every stage of educational development. F. would pass by the front desk and wave to the secretary, Melanie, as he did every morning. On her desk there was a framed postcard from San Francisco that he would occasionally see whenever he leaned on the little wall that surrounded her desk.

By 8:46 or so F. would be at his desk. He would turn on his computer, gather the materials needed to do his job, then open the various programs on the computer that were also needed. Once everything was set up and ready to go, a message from his boss would appear on the upper right, telling him what events were occurring in the office that day (meetings, assignments, etc.). He would read the email then get started on the various assignments that he was tasked with completing. He would write what was needing to be done on a small pad of paper he got from a dollar store and place a magnet on the wall of cubicle to hold it up. An alarm would go off on his phone, vibrating in his pocket to tell him to take the next pill of the day.

YELLOW

There was something about being alone in a cubicle for hours on end that didn’t sit well with F. Because of his uneasiness of sitting in this one place, he would often get distracted. F. was a fact checker. His job, such as it was, was to read and check the glossaries of various textbooks to see if they matched the current definitions of those words. He would have to do this by searching for previous versions of the textbooks in question, compare them with the current definition given to F., then check the company database to see the current definition according to the author(s) and other sources that are noted in said database. This tedious process would often take up many hours due to the amount of definitions that he would have to check and process.

The hours could feel like years to F. and thus he would get bored/tired/restless. This would lead to racing and melding of thoughts caused by the anxiety problem competing for his full attention. If that happened, then nothing would get done.

The yellow pill helped with calming those thoughts and getting him to focus on the task(s) at hand. Instead of having work pile up on his desk, he would get at least a quarter of his assignments for the day/week/month done by about 10:00. The pill also helped with social situations as well. During meetings he would be able to listen and retain information that the meeting contained. He would even take notes.

If there were no meetings and it was around 11:00, Melanie would come by and offer to get F. lunch from the delivery kiosk that would come to each floor in the Dover Tower like the ice cream truck. They deliver food from various restaurants around downtown Peoria. Orders had to be made in advance and sometimes F. would forget to order his food, especially when there were a lot of things to do that day. Melanie would come by before lunch and make sure he ordered something. F. would give her $7 to buy a Chicken Caesar salad with several cups of blue cheese and a bottle of water. Sometimes Melanie would offer to pay for his lunch out of pocket, which he thought was nice of her. She’d smile in the way where her lips would stretch yet remain full somehow, making a big smile that F. really liked.

It would take till about 12:00 for the delivery person to arrive at his cubicle (thus the reason he orders a salad instead of an oven baked sandwich or fried chicken lets say). The delivery person would roll in with his cart, open a compartment, and hand F. his salad and water in a bag, then roll away. F. would often leave a tip on the edge of his desk for the delivery person to take when he got to him. His mother once said that the nicest thing you could do for the person delivering your food is to give them a tip, no matter the amount. One should always tip their delivery persons.

F. would take the ingredients provided with the Chicken Caesar salad and put them together, starting with the chicken and blue cheese. Once the salad was fully built and mixed up and ready to be eaten, he would take one bite of the salad

WHITE

The white pill was for digestion. F. had no problems with eating as far as he knew, but he didn’t want to take the chance of suddenly throwing up his food or having stomach pains. Dr. Lazarus felt that there was no need for giving him medicine for digestion when there was no problem, but he decided to prescribe F. an experimental medication that prevented the digestion problems from occurring.

What Dr. Lazarus had actually given F. was a placebo. Sugar pills. Regardless/Despite this F. felt that it was working.

F. would have his lunch over 30 minutes, then continue to work on the assignments for the day/week/month if he had not finished any of it before lunch. Additionally, there were sometimes afternoon meetings if there was a need for them. Often the meetings were focused on deadlines and project reports. F. was always diligent and many of his projects were done on time. Especially since he’d started taking his medicine.

The hours would tick away and eventually it would be 5:00PM. An alarm would go off, reminding him to take the next pill before he left the office and made his commute toward the part of town where his apartment was. When he got off the train, F. would go in the direction of his apartment but not before going to a diner, one that he goes to pretty much every evening for dinner called

GREEN

Green was for pain, physical pain. His body would ache in various parts of his body near the beginning of the evening. The green pill would help him make it through the rest of the evening. After taking the pill he would be comfortable enough to go to the Corner Café on third street a few blocks away from his apartment.

It was open 24/7 and it was the place that F. would go to for dinner/midnight snacks and his ‘home away from home’. He would sit in a corner booth and would work/read a book/look at the news. He would eat a burger and fries with a glass of water/Coca Cola. The employees and waitresses there all knew him after a year or two and was a regular, often just asking if he wanted water, Coke, or both then putting his order in, which F. thought was very nice of them. Often F. would work on some of the assignments that he was going to work on the next day anyway/some of the assignments he might not’ve finished earlier, just to get a head start. If he wasn’t working, he would be reading one of many books that he had in his personal library, mainly fiction books. If he wasn’t doing either of these things, he would look at the news, but only for a couple minutes before doing something else. If he had done all of these things, or he wasn’t in the mood to do any of it, he would write in his journal.

The journal was his place to write about his day; what happened/what he did/assignments he completed/how he felt throughout the day/in the moment, etc. etc. To the outside viewer it would look as though F. were a man possessed, writing feverishly with his head low to the table to make sure each stroke of the pen was perfect for the words he was putting on the page. As far as they would know F. could be writing a magnum opus.

One waitress, Veronica, would be working at around dinner time all the way till 11:00PM F. would see on occasion but would never have her as his waitress. F.’s food was left on the little window between the waitress’s station and the kitchen and the chef rang the little bell sitting there. F. looked over and saw one of the waitresses grabbing his plate and a refill of his drink. He put his things off to the side and saw a hand bring his food down onto the table. Georgia would be the one usually serving F. but at some point, she had to take a smoke break at the moment his food was finished. So, when he saw a hand put down his food, he looked up to see Veronica working instead of Georgia.

F. didn’t recognize her as Veronica but as Melanie from Harper Collins suddenly working at the Corner Cafe. He jumped a little, causing her to jump a little. Veronica put one hand on her chest with the other holding his Coke. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to spook ya. Are you okay?”

F. nodded, then asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m alright, thank you.”

“Alright.”

She put the drink down next to the plate, F. saw that she wore a bracelet with Veronica’s name on one trinket and a little picture of Melanie and Veronica together. Melanie had said that she had a twin, but F. didn’t know too much beyond that.  Veronica put her hands behind her back, smiled in the same way Melanie did, her lips remaining full and her whole smile wide. She asked, “Can I get you anything else?”

F. sat there for a second, looking at the corner of the table and let out a small ‘Uh’. His mind was stuck and for a moment was trying to come up with a way to have her stay near him and but also genuinely thinking of what else he could possibly want outside of interfacing with her orally. His fear started to compound and he started to get anxious, as if he were stuck in a feedback loop. F. shook his head. Veronica nodded and started walking back to the waitress’s station.

“Wait,” F. said. He held his hand out with his pointer finger pointing up.

Veronica turned around. “Yes?”

“Uh,” he said. “I’m sorry, this is a very odd question—”

“No, it’s fine. What is it?”

“Do you have a sister named Melanie?”

“Yea,” Veronica nodded her head slowly.

“I work with her, at Harper Collins.”

“Oh!” Veronica said. “That’s why you got scared by me?” F. nodded and she chuckled. “Okay.”

“Melanie buys me lunch on occasion. I-I’m F.” F. held his hand out for her to shake.

Veronica shook F.’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Later, when F. was paying for his food, he saw a note on his receipt from Veronica with her phone number. He would call her later in the week and ask her out on a date. The first date goes well and they go on another one, then another. A few more dates and he would go on a double date with Melanie and another coworker to the movies. On that date he would learn how to differentiate between Melanie and Veronica, mainly the birthmark on Veronica’s shoulder. F. and Veronica’s first kiss would be during the first act. The first time they have sex would be at his apartment during a rainy weekend, all of a sudden. She would do this thing where she would put her hand at the small of his back and run her finger tips along his skin gently. F. would do something similar, tracing his finger along the top of her thigh in circles. He would do everything he could to remain by her side, anything to feel her touch, to see her smile.

But that’s not what happened.

F. called to Veronica, she turned around, he hesitated. “Uh,” F. said. “Can I get a glass of water as well?”

Veronica nodded and said, “Alrighty,” then went to get him that glass of water.

After this interaction F. would only see her sparingly until eventually Veronica would leave the Corner Café. At some point he’ll ask someone working what happened to her and he will learn that Veronica had been in a car accident. She died due to her allergy to morphine, which went undiscovered until her death. Melanie, naturally, was very distraught.  It would be another year before Melanie would leave Harper Collins and head to god knows where. F. guesses that she may have gone to California. She had a postcard on her desk which was from San Francisco that he always saw whenever he passed by her desk. F. wondered if she lived there at one point or wanted to live there. He would think to ask but would forget to, and eventually he would lose the oppor

BLUE

Dinner finished, F. would walk back to his apartment. His thoughts would go about thinking about what had happened that day, what will happen tomorrow, and/or, on occasion, what was happening in the present. In thinking about the present, the anxiety problem would return and F. would think about his past decisions in a harsh light which made him apprehensive about the future decisions that he’d make/not make which made him unsure of where he was in the present. This reflective downward spiral would happen every night on his way home like the rotation of a gear on a bike. He would get home at around 10:00, these thoughts still running through his mind at a racecar’s pace. In the early days of his mental treatment F. would race to get into his apartment to take the last pill in his container. Since then he’s learned to take things a little slower, because he knows that when he takes the pill it will take effect immediately. It was a blue pill that was both for anxiety and sleeping. It was an experimental drug that was only recently approved by the FDA that combined the effects of Zoloft with the PM of Advil PM. It was, to him, the pill that made all the others work so well. Without it he would not be able to sleep which caused the anxiety problem to return which would mess with his chemical makeup which made him unproductive the next day. Productiveness was the whole reason he pursued treatment in the first place. It was the goal he set out to achieve when was asked ‘What is your goal with this treatment plan?’ With his cocktail of prescription drugs prescribed by Dr. Lazarus, F. felt that he was, on a whole/through and through, productive. F. took the blue pill with a full glass of water, got undressed, put his clothes into the hamper, got the next set of clothes ready for tomorrow, then put the empty pill container into the cabinet to be refilled, and finally went to bed. Under the covers he felt warm. The sheets were weighted so it felt as though he were being hugged from all sides. It felt as if his entire day/week/life had been leading up to this very moment where he felt completely and utterly comfortable. Before long he would be asleep and a new day would begin. And it would begin the same way it always did: At around 5:30 in the morning.