^{“The eyes of a psychopath will deceive you; they will destroy you. They will take from you, your innocence, your pride and eventually your soul. ― Dr. Samuel Loomis}

Each pill trickles down into the toilet bowl. The slight tink, tink, tink of each capsule hitting the porcelain echoes throughout the bathroom and into the studio apartment, as the door to said bathroom has remained open this entire time. Goodbye, Clozapine. See you later, Fluoxetine. Good riddance, Paliperidone. Happy trails, Sertraline. Hasta la vista, Alprazolam– actually, he stops and thinks about the Xanax for a moment. Realizing how good they make him feel, he has the hardest time with this. No wonder it’s a controlled substance that doctors have a hard time getting refilled.

To his shock and instantaneous dismay, all the oval-shaped, orangish tablets of heaven spill down into the bowl. Just like the others, they immediately dissolve upon hitting the toilet water.

Well, that’s that.
I’m… I’m me. Finally.

MEMORY LAPSE 003

Arthur Pleasant sits inside the Jeep Wrangler. It’s a 2023 Rubicon 4xe edition with a firecracker red exterior. The interior is black. Leather-trimmed bucket seats. Countless buttons and knobdickeroos. He isn’t sure what the functionality for 99% of all the buttons are, but he doesn’t need to know. It’s the idea that it can just about do whatever the fuck he wants it to do that matters to him. This boulder-crawler can drive right to the tippy-top of the DEFplex with a gator flossing its teeth from the fur of an Afghan hound in the back seat, if Arthur had been so inclined to make such a grand entrance.

Plus that sexy “R U B I C O N” lettering on the outside of the front hood, resting just above the wrap-around, height-extended steel bumper that covers the wheels. There’s just something about this vehicle that has Arthur’s attention more than all the others he’s looked at in the recent months he’s been searching.

“Well, sir? How does it feel?” the Jeep salesman asks.

Arthur rubs his hands all over the steering wheel, feeling the satisfying surface of the polyurethane with the tips of his fingers.

“Feels like what a Jeep should feel like, I’d say.”

Undeterred by his customer’s lack of excitement, he persists further with dollar signs in his eyes and whispers of commission tracing his earlobe as seductively as a woman’s tongue.

“Want to test drive it, Mr. Pleasant?”

Arthur scoffs, waving his hand.

“Not necessary.”

“Oh.” shoots back the dejected salesman.

Arthur smiles.

“I think I’ll take it. No need to test drive it when I’ve already made up my mind.”

“O-OH! Well. Shall we talk about price? I can take you over to financing with Eric and get you a great-”

“Again, not necessary. I have the cash. Right here. Front seat. You… take cash, don’t you?” Arthur inquires rather sarcastically.

Taken aback, the salesman nods. Continuing, Arthur grabs the large black gym bag he carried with him to the Jeep dealership, in which he plops down on the front seat of the floor model upon setting foot inside of it.

“Here. One-hundred G’s. Sixty-eight whatever for the Jeep. The rest? It’s all yours.”

The salesman, knowing better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, nods his head.

“Thank you so very much, Mr. Pleasant. I… I’m not even sure what to say!”

“You can say nothing. But, while you’re saying nothing? You can ponder something for me. You can ponder, “Where oh WHERE did this freak come up with this kind of cash!?”.  And you can ponder this as you take your hefty bonus to the back and tell Ricky, Shelley, and Dave that Mr. Pleasant just saved your asses from Blake parking his eighty-thousand dollar BMW right outside.”

Wondering what exactly Arthur was referencing, the salesman stands there in silence.

“That was a… never mind. If you know, you know. So, uh, as long as there’s gas in this baby and a half-a-tank of gas? I’ll just drive myself out.”

Fuck, that felt good.
Thanks for the cash, Pops.

All of a sudden, Arthur’s face whitens like a sheet.

Wait… how exactly did I end up here?!

MEMORY LAPSE 004

“So, you’ve been doing better, Arthur?” asks Dr. Edwards.

Fuck. Not again.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” she states plainly, jotting something down on her trusty notepad as Arthur fails to acknowledge the question due to his own unmoored presence.

Are the drugs still in my system?!

Arthur looks up and into the eyes of Dr. Edwards.

“Sorry, you were saying something?” he asks.

“I was making sure you were doing better since our last appointment, Arthur. I’m more than a little concerned.”

What day is it?!

“Don’t be. I’m doing much better. Honest injun.”

Fucking liar.

Dr. Edwards can clearly see that something is going on behind those eyes.

But what is it, exactly?

“Oh no.” Arthur says loudly as he suddenly gets up from the wide-tufted Chesterfield chair. Racing over to the window, Arthur scans the small parking lot, knowing whether he’d see his car or not.

But there it sits. The firecracker red Jeep.

"You're starting to worry me, Arthur. Are you still taking your medication?"

He turns around from the window and stares directly ahead into the eyes of Dr. Edwards.

"Of course I am, Doc. In fact?" 

Arthur sits back down, feeling a sense of relief, knowing he didn't imagine being at the dealership earlier.

"I'm kinda insulted at the insinuation, to be honest."

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