Placebo Affect

Saturday and Sunday are spent in bed watching porn and college football. This is my medicine, my rescue drug for the drugs they give me during the rest of the week.

Laying on my bed, I carefully place the last pill from the envelope on my thumb. It sits there powerless, lifeless, and ineffective. I pinch it as hard as I can until my fingers turn white. I want to pulverize it. I want to smash it into dust, and have the wind blow it into nonexistence. But nothing happens.

The bedroom window is open and a cold air lifts the medication envelope onto the dirty pile of clothes on the floor. Outside, the roof is covered with pigeons waiting for the final morsel.

I flick Sunday, 5 PM out the window.

The birds scatter, flap back to the center, and peck madly at the pill. Subject #159-C is completely gray with a white speckled necklace.