THE LITTLE YELLOW PILLS

This man is easily cured, which is probably just as well bearing in mind who he is.

“You’re a receptionist, aren’t you?”

Maureen had seen his type before. Arrogant, confident but very very needing. So she nodded and replied, “yes, of course I am, but I can’t issue prescriptions. Only the doctor can do that and as you can see I’m not one of those.”

“But I had some. A packet of them, only last week.”

She consulted the screen of her computer and nodded. “Yes, I see that, and according to the pharmacy they were issued on the 11^th. Let’s see, that was Thursday of last week. A month’s supply. So you’ve still got most of them left and you can’t have any more.”

She peered closely at the screen and shook her head. “Have you any idea how much that packet of tablets costs?” she asked.

“I flushed them down the loo,” he confessed, “they weren’t doing me any good at all. They’re for people who hear voices when there’s nobody around, loonies you know, and I’m not one of those. So, yes, I flushed them down the loo.”

“So if they weren’t doing you any good why get rid of them?” The question tripped out like so many did. Automatically, like she’d asked it so many times before that she was fed up with the answer. It wasn’t the case, though. Some of the patients fascinated her, and this was one of that lot. And she knew that if she assumed a kind of disinterested interest you got further with them.

“I’m under pressure at work,” he replied confidentially. “And they won’t give me any more at the pharmacy because I had them last week, but it wasn’t last week that I needed them it’s now.”

He looked desperate in a way that bordered on the fanatical and she knew what to do.

“I’ll see if the doctor’s got a few moments to see you,” she said, conspiratorially, doing him a huge favour.

Then: “look, he’s here now! It might be your lucky day!”

“I killed my wife.” There it was, out in the open. He felt better when it was out in the open, when he had nothing to squash with all the other nothings into his brain until his head ached. He’d lose his job, such an important job, but being open with what he’d done was best. Surely it was.

“You what?” She was alarmed. “Doctor!” she called imperiously.

The patient liked this doctor. He was the sort of man who understood the pressures, the grind, the huge nonsenses of life. How days can be so toxic all you want to do is reach out and end them all. Each and every one, starting with Tuesday, which was today. Is. Which is today.

“He said he killed his wife, doctor,” hissed the receptionist. “He just said it. Shall I call the police? Shall I dial 999 and see what he’s done?”

The doctor smiled at her. “Leave it to me,” he said in that warm, confidential tone of his, “I’ll have a nice long chat with him now and we’ll see what’s going on in the world.”

“But his wife...”

“Leave it to me. Come on, Alfred, let’s have a few words in the quiet, where there’s nobody around to eavesdrop. There’s nothing worse than nosey parkers sticking their great big olfactory organs in, is there?”

“I did it. I killed her, the inquisitive cow, I killed my wife!”

“So you say, Alfred, so you say.”

“I flushed them away.”

“You did? That’s interesting. You flushed what away … come in, sit down, take a deep breath. Now, Alfred, what did you flush away?”

“The yellow ones.”

“The yellow ones? What yellow ones?”

“Tablets. The yellow ones that stop me from hearing voices in my head, but I don’t. There aren’t any voices in my head, just thoughts, deep and lovely thoughts, and they’re not voices, are they? Everyone has thoughts but not everyone has little yellow pills, do they?”

“You did? Flushed the away? All of them.”

“They had to go, doctor, they made me kill my wife Audrey. The knife was there, you see, the blade, the wicked sharp blade, and it … you’ll think I’m mad, but I’m not, it sort of beckoned at me, and she’d been so rotten to me, ordering me about, telling me I should take my pills for my own good, so I picked up the knife and flushed them down the toilet. All of them, little yellow dancing pills in the foaming water. I had to flush three times because one of them just didn’t want to go. It was as if it wasn’t meant to, but I soon sorted it with a third flush.”

“And the knife?” You said you picked up the knife? What was it? A nice shiny kitchen knife?”

He nodded.

“And what did you so with the nice shiny knife, Alfred? You picked it up, you say?

“And she was there, glowering at me. You know what I mean by glowering? Her little eyes, they are little, you know, little and mean, were trying to see into my head and I won’t let anyone see into that! They might see the hidden things, the nasty little secrets that I tuck away when nobody’s looking, the dirty things. Yes, the dirty things. And her eyes were trying to see them, to sort through my nasty little secrets and blame me for being me! Those little eyes, those penetrating little eyes...”

“And the knife, Alfred?”

“Yes, the shiny knife, the blade, the sharp thing … I leapt on her, doctor, I leapt on her with all my might and slashed and stabbed until I couldn’t slash and stab any more, and the shiny blade went deep into her time and time again until she couldn’t look at me any more and tell me not to be such a silly boy like she did, don’t be a silly boy, Alfy, she’d say, “there’s no call for you to get such silly ideas, so take one of your pills, the yellow one, the one that stops you hearing voices...but I don’t hear voices, doctor, I’m not a loony like she thinks … thought I was.”

“And then you came down here to see me?”

“After I flushed away the nasty yellow pills. Then I knew something that I’d forgotten. I needed those pills! They kept me … what’s the word?”

“Balanced, Alfred. And they always will and, would you believe it, look out of the window, who’s that coming with such a purposeful walk as if she were in a real hurry?”

“Audrey. It’s Audrey. In a hurry like she always is...”

“Maybe she’d come for you, Alfred? Maybe she’s come to take you home for dinner. It must be getting on for dinner time.”

“But I need the pills, doctor, the little yellow ones, the ones for voices in my head, the voices I never hear but might one day.”

“I’ve got some here, Alfred, in my drawer, your little yellow pills that dance their way down to the loo when you flush them away. I’ll have to sort them, though, they’ve got mixed with lots of different pills, all different colours. Look, a bit like a tube of rainbow pieces, orange and red and green and brown...”

“I need the yellow ones, doctor, they stop the voices from coming into my head.”

The door opened quietly after the gentlest of knocks, and the receptionist put her head round it.

“It’s his wife, doctor, it’s Audrey,” she said, winking.

“Here you are, Alfred, and no flushing these down the toilet or you won’t get any more. They’re really very expensive, you know.”

“I killed her, doctor,” he whispered, “with the shiny knife. Audrey’s my mistress.”

When he was gone, holding his wife’s hand very, very firmly and talking to her in that confidential, animated way of his, the receptionist shook her head.

“He’s a loony,” she muttered, “I was worried for you, doctor, when you closed your door with him inside here with you.”

“Be careful how you diagnose people like him, Anna, He may look like a loony to you, but he’s easily cured. A handful of nice yellow Smarties and he’s back to normal for another month. He’ll be back at school tomorrow, taking assembly as if nothing has happened, and nobody will guess the trouble he thought he was in today and that the only thing in the big wide world that balances his mind is chocolate!”

© Peter Rogerson 22.11.17