The SSRI kid

The Chronicles of a kid on an SSRI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SSRI KID

                                    A SHORT STORY BY ALEJANDRO MANUEL ESPINOZA

                                                            6/4/07

 

 

 

 

‘Morally, whatever this is called, or rather, what I’ve got in mind goes against everything I’ve ever preached to anyone. ‘Cause that’s what I am.

An evangelist of some sort.

Eliminate self indulgence. Stop continuously lusting for the closest substitute for dopamine. I could tell people that they couldn’t do it, to hold on to life – because that’s all they’ve got, you really only live once, so make good of a one-use thing. But I guess when I preach to myself, my sermons, the ones preached to emo suicide kids at one in the morning on some stale night, they don’t apply.

            A hypocrite of some sort.

Maybe it’s just static radio interference in my head. Maybe it’s just me checking all the cubicles in my mind, searching for the right chemical to use. Maybe serotonin. Maybe norepinephrine. Or maybe I’m looking for dopamine.

            No. I know what I’m looking for.

I’m looking for a vacation. Limbo, a quick access to it. Something to ease my mind, but without all the thinking. I want something or someone to choose how I will feel for me. Push the happiness that is settled inside to the surface. For a moment I contemplate my sexuality. And for these reasons, I’ll take my leave. My little orange bottle. My prescribed vacation days in a tiny little container. Within this container though, is a greater container. My little white vacation days. Perhaps I’ll recreate Disney Land. Maybe even recreate Universal Studios. But of course these aren’t even fun when you’re totally sober, are they? You get an SSRI like escitalopram and everything is Disney Land or Universal Studios. Caricatures. Spinning. Throwing up. The chalky white thing is a cheap amusement park vacation twenty times less the price and twenty times less the size. I’m terrified of amusement parks.

            I guess its acrophobia of some sort.

I contemplate my ambivalence. All the more reason to put my vacation in my mouth and down it with water.

            I guess its desperation of some sort.’

 

With the pills in his hand, he lets his eyes slide over the foggy mirror.

 

“It looks more greasy than foggy.”

           

He traces his fingers along the fog in the mirror, creating a hole small enough to see his face. He stares and leans forward. Staring the boy down.

His boiling face.           

His under bite.

His stye.

His supposed-to-be-tan-but-is-pale face

His own father was looking at him from within mirror. His stolen father. He was his son. He used to be. But shortly before his exile, he was a stand in for her, something less than a son. When she wasn’t there he became her, and at that time, his father loved him too. But when she came back, then he became something less of a son again, and all he could do is wait to become her again. Or maybe she was just getting tired of his father, dumping him onto his something less than a son when she was tired of him. He was her burden, but he was happily his father to the “something less than a son”. In some ways, he wondered if he was her. A stand-in wife?

            He again questions his sexuality.

His father – a judge. His own coliseum of spectators. He slams his hand onto the cold tiled counter and winces, not because of the stinging pain, but because of the thoughts.

 

 

‘I guess I’m a procrastinator of some sort.’

 

 

He looks at the circular steam hole he made in the mirror, and watches as it dissipates into little tears of water into the frame. Emptying half of the bottle, he scatters the pills into his hand. The boy, looking into the mirror, thought to himself.

 

“I want to be happy even though I’m not happy. The mechanics and gears that play God are in this. I want to be beautiful even though I’m not beautiful.”

 

He lifts his hand up to his mouth, and before taking the pills, he looks at the boy’s asymmetrical face in the mirror.

 

“Do I love myself?”

 

He takes the pills and never answers himself.

 

 

            ‘So for most of the ride on the bus I’m wondering why the bus smells like old Kraft Singles cheese. I’m wondering why my legs are restless. I’m wondering if my first period English teacher is going to see how medicated I am. I’m wondering If I’m going to fall asleep and die. I sit and wonder to myself. Will I be joined with my ancestors tonight?

            Do I have it, this necrophobia?

Am I going to meet God? Is he going to tell me that I’ve been a very naughty boy, and slap me on the hand? You have to question his wrath. The seven deadly sins are the Cliff Notes of the bible. God told his disciples to write the bible. In a way, you could say that God wrote the seven deadly sins – the saint only figured them out. So God forbids wrath. But is he not wrathful? If I die on this big cheese limousine… will he not enforce himself to tear away what’s beneath me into the cold depths of hell? Why can God tell you not to be wrathful when his image and words embody it?

            This makes God a hypocrite of some sort.

These are my thoughts. My outlandish thoughts. My constant rants and b*****s. What I don’t know is that for this drug to be totally absorbed into my system, it will take about an hour for the chemicals to reach my brain, affecting my movement, thoughts, speech, visage, whatever. You know, all that stuff that cops look for when they suspect you’re high. It’s only been thirty minutes and I’m freaking out. I remember telling a girl off for getting drunk at school. I tell her that by indulging in this, getting as near to dopamine as she could, made her weak. She shouldn’t do it, not ever. She’s a fool for showing up in a public place intoxicated. For Bringing Disney Land to school in a bottle.

            This makes me a hypocrite of some sort.

So about twenty-something minutes later the big stinky cheese bus pulls into the s****y school. You know the drill. Everyone walks past you but you’re in the front of the bus. I try and move. A black guy nudges me back into the seat.

 

“Stupid N****r.”

 

I perplex myself. Why do I call people n*****s in the offensive racist sense if I am myself a quarter black? I realize I care less and I think it’s funny.

            I guess serotonin is a humorist of some sort.

I walk into the double doors to look at my group of familiars as they stand stagnant and content. My friend walks up to me. Its five minutes about until the pills start working.

I’m still susceptible to emotions. The flower grows.

 

“Hey, hey, hey, friend.”

 

Maybe she’s beautiful. Maybe she’s not. You can’t tell if she is anymore without actually talking to her. She just might be ugly today.

 

“Look, Jim and I are having problems. He’s not talking to me. And…You know, you’re my good friend and all, and I’m glad we talked, but you know, he doesn’t understand that him talking to me has a different meaning, it’s just different you know. And…”

 

Blah Blah Blah. Bullshit. Jargon. Poppycock. She makes me think of my father. I was a stand in for Jim. When he wasn’t there I became him, and as result she came to love me too. But when he came back, I became me again, waiting to become him again. Or maybe he was just getting tired of her, dumping her onto me when he was tired. His burden. I wonder if I am him in some ways. In other words, in my eyes, she’s ugly today.  So now I turn around and the other girl is standing behind me. The other girl I want to put my hands on. The other girl.

            Does she have it, that Androphobia?

            Does she have it, that Genophobia?

            Does she have it, that Gymnophobia?

But we don’t touch, and I’m sexually repressed. I can smell the pheromones on her.

            Maybe she has it, that Tokophobia

            Or maybe she has it, that Mysophobia

Or maybe I’m just a nymphomaniac of some sort.’

 

 

He turns to her and smiles a drug induced smile. The flower blooms.

 

“Hey, buddy.”

 

She smiles faintly at him, a hint of desperation in her voice.

 

“Hey…umm…can I talk to you alone, for a second? You know, in E-hall.”

 

 

‘Her eyes are a Lexmark text and photo scanner. I look at her, and there’s that flash of light, and she’s scanning me, my thoughts, my demeanor. My obsession. My repression.’

            The whir of her scanner.

 

 

“Please, we need to talk.”

 

“Okay, okay.”

 

He turns around to his friend to see she left a long time ago. He shrugs and thinks little. She grabs his arm.

 

“Come on.”

 

The boy staggers around with her, his muscles straining and his eyes shifting in his head. He looks at her, the girl, the girl with the focused and desperate look on her face. She pulls him into the E-hall corner. She whispers to him,  

“What are you doing tonight?”

 

“Uhh…nothing probably.”

 

He stares at a bucket of paint.

 

“Hey, I know this is sudden…and unexpected…but….do you think I could sneak over to your house? What would you think about that?”

 

He stares at an abandoned science project that is collecting dust.

She looks at him.

            The whir of her scanner.

The pills decrease the effectiveness of the libido. The sex drive is gone. The sex drive hibernates. He looks at her.

            Almost Pure intentions.

Looking into her eyes, he thinks to himself…

           Thinks to himself…

                       Thinks to himself…

But he realizes every chemical cubicle, his entire staff, every chemical pew, his entire congregation, are all on leave. Surfing and getting a tan in Limbo. A silence. An in-between place.

 

FATHER: And what did the chemicals say to the lost disciple on the first hour?

CONGREGATION: Be back in five. Left for f*****g Disney land.

FATHER: And why does the mind tell his disciple this?

CONGREGATION: Because with chalky gears he cheats God.

FATHER: Amen.

CONGREGATION:    His life

                                    An Inferno

                                    Of wasting away

                                    Of wasted days

                                    Of passing days

                                    Of thoughtless ways

                                    Ongoing, undone, unlived

                                    Unsolved, Unfulfilled

                                    Passing days

                                    Passing days

 

“Of course you can!”

           

He doesn’t think about that. The flower sprinkles poison.

 

He does not know what she’s telling him, and her eyes light up. She is ready to break through. Step up from fear. To fry falling hair. To burn snakeskin. She says she’s ready. She tells him, with glossy marble eyes,

 

“I’m ready.”

 

            The whir of her scanner.

 

Of course to the boy, this means it is time to go to class. The SSRI kid. The stoner. She looks at Genophobia him. She tells him, to his eyes, that she’s ready.

            That she doesn’t have it, that.

 

             

 

‘What they don’t tell you about a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor is that later that night, when the effects wear off your mind…

            When the “people” – come back to the “steeple”  

And you sit down to pet the bald squirrel, the effects are still clinging onto your junk. The irony is, this stuff is also used to treat males with their problems of premature ejaculation, but it can cause anorgasm or erectile dysfunction. I get to fill in C and B. Pathetic and cold, I sit at my computer with my South Park pajama bottoms bunched up at my feet. I smack my carrot around, trying to get a rise out of it, in the literal sense. I should have read the label. As the endorphins in my mind burn out like fireflies in daylight, I realize I’m searching for more. More dopamine. More endorphins. More liberating methamphetamine.

            A compulsive of some sort.

The phone rings.

            A wake-up call of some sort.

I suppose I could have told her to leave when she said she was at the basement door. I suppose I could have not answered the phone when I saw her name on the caller I.D. I suppose I could have told her not to strip down to her underwear. She’s naked with her breasts against my chest, her teenage stretch-marks barely visible in moonlight. I suppose I shouldn’t be kissing her exposed flesh.

            What happened to it, that Androphobia?

            What happened to it, that Genophobia? 

            What happened to it, that Gymnophobia?

Gone and history. Her fear of males. Her fear of sex. Her fear of penises. Am I the rock shedding her snake skin? The wind against her shedding hair? Or the flame burning them both? I breathe in the intoxicating smoke and claim my endorphins. I’m the flame to her heroin, bubbling and rising Disney Land from the spoon like magic on an Arabian night.

She looks at me. The curling smoke makes me cough. Her eyes whisper late autumn, early winter.

 

“Do you have a condom?”

 

            The whir of her scanner.

 

She asks me this with her crotch against mine. I think about SSRI. It decides my feelings for me. My fears. It tells me I’m a Genophobe. My sex drive is a bear and it’s winter. I’m flaccid. I fear her vagina powers. Her pheromones are raped and forgotten by SSRI. I look at her, her unvarnished body with its shimmers, her lips with their curves, and her eyes.

            The whir of her scanner.

 

“I’m not so sure it’s the right time for us to have sex.”

 

She is silent and does not talk to me. I can hear the congregation’s groaning underneath the whir of her scanner.

 

FATHER: The virgin disciple is rejected by her idolized lover.

CONGREGATION: The virgin sings; praise be to God.

FATHER: Let us prey for her salvation, and that of her lover.

 

I char instead of burn. She picks up her clothes and leaves crying. She tells me she loves me. And that she was always scared.

She still has it, that Genophobia.

Her eyes blaring scarlet like neon signs in a red light district dissipate into organic human spheres. Her scent is here and not her pheromones. It is then that the SSRI becomes a God and not a conspirator, the entrepreneur of irony. Morally, it was wrong. My impulsive behavior. My hypocrisy. My pursuit of dull bliss in inebriation. My confusion. My sexual repression. My feelings of being used. They still remain. I begin to wonder. Was it the SSRI that gave me the vacation?

            Or was it Fate?

            Or was it God?

            Or even the Devil?

Had they given me my sexual obsession to take it away, to shield its destructive power from her? Had they made me feel used to take that away and show me what true love is? Had they given me a meaningless life to find reason? Made me confused so I know that this is solace?  Or maybe this proves that there is a God. Maybe this shows that there can’t possibly be one. I don’t know.

            A conundrum of some sort.

            An enlightenment of some sort.’

 

 

Author's Note

SSRI