"Sunlight" (Chapter 8: Medication--NANOWRIMO)

Chapter 8: Medication

Less than three years ago…

                There were about six umbrellas of locations which Damir would visit on a daily basis. Various clinics, which could practically count as one, the bus stop, internet job locators, also practically their own location, his home, the Pax family’s single vehicle, when not transporting more than himself from one physical place to the next, the bus stop, and lastly, the bus itself. The people and surroundings had begun to blend into one sort of monochrome mixture of silvers and grays, lonely and dreary and treading through their own troubles, as if their experiences had never belonged to anybody else.

                He felt their lonely frustrations and sorrow and the motions they all went through. He was one with the bus-riders and those who populated clinic waiting rooms, and the physical therapy patients, and the ones who waited and watched their families. He was one with the desperate who sought work with a thirst, one with the men and women who never slept, one with those whose pasts haunted them awake and asleep.

                He was one with those who wondered about a single human being more than any other human being. One with the abandoned, and one with the guilty.

                It had been five weeks and three days since James’s graduation party. His short-sleeved shirts were loose, and he wore pants whatever the temperature, though it was now the middle of a blistering July. Independence Day passed, uncelebrated, other than a few brief glimpses of fireworks on television and the gunshot sounds from the rest of town. His mother had slept through it. His father had joined her, to keep watch on his wife, if not to rest himself.

                Damir had his fair share of sleep as well. Or at least attempts at it.

                The previous night had been one without much sleep; perhaps two hours at best. Still, it was time to fill prescriptions. He had schlepped out of bed in a semi-conscious state, gone through a partial morning routine, and painfully gathered their funds for this very necessary resource. There was not a doubt in his mind that the three of them, as damaged as they were, they would be far worse off without the drugs. They did not heed those who sternly warned them of their side effects. But pain was pain, and depression was, indeed, depression.

                His mother had hated drugs. He willed himself not to think of her opinion of them now.

                 Perhaps the methods used by those in power were not the ones which would benefit the Pax family the most; but Damir wouldn’t question for now. Practicality was what mattered; and if better treatment cost more than the money that they already didn’t have, this would have to suit them for now.

                A tidal wave of desperation flooded him as the bus arrived at the pharmacy. It would not be long before none of this would be possible, if they did not receive steady income soon. There was more he could do. It did him little good to attempt not to see… the possibilities. Exaggerated cardboard signs, all the pitying eyes, but little provided for them. He nearly shuddered with the thought. He understood that most in those circumstances could not have helped where they’d ended up.

                He pressed against cold glass and entered the pharmacy; it was as though he’d entered a large, well-maintained freezer. Here, he blended into the aggregate known as pharmacy line-standers. He suppressed a yawn, and attempted not to acknowledge his shivering. He hoped it was merely due to the temperature change.

                The line moved along as slow as the warmth outdoors. There were about four people ahead of him. Every person looked utterly familiar, and unfamiliar all the same.

                Save for the young woman who stood with her mother. Her father left the line; he gave the other two away.

                Amira.

                “Amira?” he said, almost without the intention of saying so.

                The way she suddenly stiffened into an ice sculpture in white capris gave her away entirely.

                She stepped out of line, and permitted the person behind her to go ahead.

                “I’m going to go find your father,” her mother said; something about the way the Senela’s interacted had changed since he had last seen them. A lot could happen in nearly a month; he’d seen it numerous times now. Different developments. Discoveries. Improvements.

Setbacks.

Amira turned to face him now; it always seemed her parents left her when he was present. But their leaving likely had absolutely nothing to do with Damir’s actual presence.

“Hi,” he began.

“Hi.”

There was something different about Amira as well.

“Um… I’m sorry. About um… last time we met.”

She looked away from him.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, barely audible. The others continued to gather their prescriptions.

“Should we… do you… um…”

“Some other time?” she continued for him.

“Sure. Yes. Talk… some other time?”

She nodded.

Damir noticed that he had somehow arrived at the counter.

He refilled his parents’ and his own medications. The monotony had been broken. Gray and silver had shifted into yellow and white and blue. He glanced over his shoulder, once the necessities had been retrieved; Amira’s parents had not yet returned.

“Can I um… can we exchange phone… numbers? Maybe?”

She glanced behind her as well, and nodded once more, quickly. Somehow, one of them produced a pen and scrawled each other’s significant seven digits, exchanging them with surprising dexterity.

Damir left, feeling as though he had taken a battering ram to the door of his mind, and that Amira had offered the same to him. The thought was terrifying, yet full of potential.

Grey and silver had turned to yellow, white, and blue, he’d noted, as he stared upward at the bus stop. His gaze wandered next, to the sunflower across the street, who lifted her chin to her mother in the sky.

***

For a long time, the young man had filled out application after application. He filled out about one application for every day of the week, for at least three weeks, if that was possible. Perhaps he’d filled out more than one for the same place, even for the same job… but he was not counting.

A week after seeing Amira at the pharmacy, Damir secured his first job since… at least two years prior to that July. Dangerously mopping up restaurant floors and wiping down tables. He was capable now, and it wouldn’t matter if he wasn’t. No, he was. He had to be. The pay was not very high, but he kept his options open; it was part-time work. He would seek out another part-time, and another, if that was what it would take to keep his family sustained.

The cleaning became a nightly work after another few weeks; during the day, he had the time to shuttle his parents as he had to, and on other days, he assumed a few hours of filing at an unsuccessful office. A few more hours a week, he stocked shelves at a grocery store. He had barely a minute a day to anyone other than his parents. He hadn’t the time for nightmare, nor fantasy.

All time was dedicated to them. To allowing the Pax family to survive, whatever that looked like for them. He found that the busyness of it all was almost a relief, no matter how much pain he wound up in at the end of the day; it was nearly worth it. He hadn’t the time to consider his work’s value to be anything more than survival, nor consider the intricacies of purpose; this place in his life was all about the tasks at hand, about accomplishing them to the extent that was necessary, and perhaps more. The distance maintained between action and thought kept the fragile structure of this family from caving in. It did not matter that they may have kept such thoughts within; their only goal was to survive.

Regardless of distance or silence in thought, the structure remained fragile. Damir was well aware of the role that he played; the triangle was nothing but two stuck lines if the hypotenuse was removed. The lines would go on forever without an ending, if only with each other.

He understood that it all fell upon him now. He was willing to assume that role; his parents had demonstrated care, structure, responsibility, all their lives. Even their most irresponsible decisions had an altruistic component; their travels to other countries, however sudden, always improved the lives of those around them, be they strangers or fellow officers or volunteers. They were not people-pleasers, yet the benefit of others was their ideal, whether it was merely bringing a smile to their faces. Their negative feelings were put away in the face of others, so as not to burden them.

The least he could do was the same for them.

It was not to say that he didn’t struggle. The nightmares still came, never called for, but those were the good nights; a nightmare implied sleep, even if it was not entirely restful. Most nights, he simply laid awake; those were his only moments of pause. And whatever thoughts he’d managed to put to sleep while he partook of his roles, crawled out of their beds and turned on all the car headlights in his head. It was at night which he was haunted the most.

Soon, the memories would start a revolution in Damir’s mind; this was not his decision to make. They knew his weaknesses, they knew where to attack to make him collapse, to drive him to a pleading surrender.

One night, he could not keep those thoughts within him. He laid awake for many long moments, feeling the constant pulsating aches and throbs, as well as the jabbing sensations that had become his body. And the sounds of screeching, screaming, shattering, repeated themselves over and over. He drove himself deeper into bed, as the shadow of headlights from the outside pierced through his blinds. Nothing could stop it. Nothing. Shaking, he closed the blinds, attempting to block out what existed beyond the room.

All of the pain were sensations anew when he found his mind crawling back, caving in.

After what may have been hours, he wrestled with the memories, battled with them, tossing, turning, pacing, using all his strength not to scream.

When dawn had long passed, he left to help his mother out of bed. But the scenes and the thoughts did not stop. Damir did not leave the house that first day. He couldn’t even bother to call.

But as the days drew on, he forced himself back to work, but still nothing stopped. He dropped things and slipped, fell, and stared. He hurried outside to take in fresh air, as if it had the power to shift the thoughts, but the air did nothing. He shouted at somebody else as the pressure began to build, and he was sent home.

Some week later, he recalled the piece of the doorway that he’d taken from Amira… It was an early night for him, and it was summer. He could only hope that she would remain awake at this time. He could only hope he wouldn’t disturb her too greatly… he had never been one to give away his thoughts, especially those which caused such great distress. Was she capable of relieving those thoughts? Likely not. But she was a part of this foreign world of pieces which fit together and worked for a purpose. She was something, someone, somewhere, alive, and knowing, quietness powerful and meaningful, and strong.

Hers was the first call he had made since the previous week.

“H-Hello?” she stammered, her voice tearful.

“Amira?” he whispered. He should hang up, he thought.

“He’s gone, Damir… he… I… He’s gone…”

“What’s wrong, Amira?”

“He… I… I can’t… he’s not here, Damir… he’s gone…”

He should hang up.

“Who’s gone, Amira?”

“Liam,” she whispered, her voice breaking with a sudden sob. “Liam’s gone, I can’t see him… He’s not here… he… he’s gone…”

There was silence on the line, punctuated only the by the sound of saltwater rain pouring from the girls’ skylight eyes.

“I… he… he’s gone… I took the… I took the pills, Damir, they told me… and… he… he’s gone. I can’t see him anymore.”

The ice-sculpture girl in white capris, standing in the pharmacy. The playroom basement and Dan’s remarks, the school days she had missed and the way she’d run when he’d said what he had.

He simply listened for a long while.

“I’m sorry, Amira…” he whispered, though he’d hated the word in sympathy, hoping it meant something else from his lips, liquid lead encasing his body, as he laid upon his bed, this late, endless night. Endless day.

She sniffled and gasped in breath, her breathing slowly becoming even.

“Me too,” she replied.

They remained silent a long while, each with his or her thoughts, his or her own apparitions, their own considerations. A tectonic plate of privacy, of reservation, had shifted and caused a tsunami of what could not be taken back. Levees had broken; floodgates had opened. Their secrets, that ocean, washed over the lands that were once their lonely lives.

“Can I… see you sometime?” he cautiously continued.

                The girl nodded at the opposite side of the line, before slowly speaking.

                “Yes.”

                His schedule had called him to be off, the very next day.

                “Tomorrow?”

                She nodded again.

                “O-Okay.”

                Both lines fell silent at once.