(part 1 is here:
http://365project.org/summerfield/365-still/2014-06-30
Dr. Lawrence says the dragons will disappear if she takes the blue pills. Happy pills, he calls them. Dr. Lawrence tells her she has depression and that the pills should make her feel better.
But they don’t. The dragons have now multiplied and they follow her everyday, everywhere – on the streets, inside the bus, in the cinema, atop the buildings, on the boardwalk by the beaches, in the subway tunnel. And now they have voices. They call to her, they whisper to her, they scream at her. She closes her eyes and they are there behind the darkness. They’re even in her dreams. She resolves not to take the happy pills anymore.
“The bottle, Naomi,” whispers the little voice in her head. “The bottle will help you kill the dragons.”
She knows this little voice, it has been there from the start, before the dragons started to take over. She ignores it.
In the bus going home after the appointment with Dr. Lawrence, Naomi’s body gets into a shiver, sweat pouring out of her skin. She feels both hot and cold at the same time. Her head feels like a balloon, air being pumped into it, until it becomes so big she feels it will explode.
“I can fight this. I know I can,” she tells herself.
“Can you, Naomi? Can you really?”
She looks down and sees the large iridescent green tail with pointed end as it slowly caresses her shin, scaly and shimmering in the misty spring sun.
She spins around, “Yes, I can!” A young man sits behind her.
“Excuse me?” he says, his arm around the shoulders of a girl.
Naomi shakes her head, sits back, embarrassed and confused. She hears the girl’s giggle as the young man says in a low voice but loud enough for her to hear, “Asshole bitch.”
Naomi stands up and pulls the yellow cord to stop the bus. She can feel the dragon now breathing in her ear. “Asshole bitch”. She pushes her way towards the door of the bus.
“Let me out here!” she says, her voice quivering.
“The bus stop is still a few meters away, ma’am. I can't let you off here. You will have to wait,” the bus driver says.
“Let me out here, please! Please!!!”
“Ma’am, I can’t let you out here, the bus stop is over there. You need to wait.”
“Naomi.” It is the voice.
She wouldn’t look.
“Naooooomi!”
She screams, much louder now. “Let me out here!” She pounds on the door.
“Oh, shit. Another nut,” she hears the bus driver mutter.
Raucous roaring laughter, howling more like, resonates in her ears. She looks back and sees dragons of all sizes prancing around the bus, laughing and mocking her, their claws pointing at her, long fingers getting longer as they move towards her. She pounds harder on the door even as the bus pulls over and the door opens. She falls on the pavement, the door closes and the laughter and howling disappear.
“The bottle. Look, Naomi, the bottle!”
The liquor store’s sign looms before her.
The bottle.
-o0o-
to be continued
part 2
part 3 is here:
http://365project.org/summerfield/365-still/2014-07-13
