The Day Pill

He ran towards her smiling. Powerful yet graceful, his body shined like a bronze statuette under the light of the setting sun. He stopped and gently touched her arm. Ethel felt her knees go weak at his soft caress. His features were straight and strong. His eyes, a deep oceanic blue, sparkled and he looked at her longingly, seducing her with his warmth. 

Pulling her towards him, he lifted her effortlessly into his arms. "Come with me, my love," he allured, carrying her towards the glimmering waves.

***

"Mrs. Shultz, Mrs. Shultz, it's four thirty, the time to wake up."

Ethel opened her eyes and first moment didn't understand where she was. But a persistent smell of feces, the trademark of convalescent homes, quickly brought her back to reality. She's Ethel Shultz, seventy six years of age, female, divorced, born on 11/12/1975 in Los Angeles, California, currently dwelling at 155 Fairfax Blvd. Kennedy Convalescent home, Room #25, Bed #3

"Mrs. Shultz, wake up." Nurse's oriental accent, unpleasantly prickled her ears. Ethel wrinkled her nose as she took a quick glance in the wall mirror. The nurse's full and round face smeared with the lazy benevolence like a pancake with the blueberry syrup, appeared as dissonance with her own bony and hard shaped features, long nose and bristly sparks of dissatisfaction in her dark intense eyes. 

"Who is it?" she inhaled and slowly, pressing her hand against metal railing pulled her body in the sitting position.

"It's your son."

***

"Hi, mama," David bent down and kissed Ethel on a cheek, "I stopped for a second, just to say hi. Jessica's waiting in the car. You know how hard it is to park here." 

"So?" Ethel looked at him in her usual non-blinking manner, cutting his thread short and putting another one instead in the ear-hole of the conversation. 

"Did you talk to Finestein? Can he sign the papers that this is the medically necessary?"

"Well, mama," David tried to look her straight in the eyes, but eventually turned away. "That's the thing… Doctor Finestein doesn't believe it IS," he raised his voice stressing the last word, "the medically necessary. He feels, and I actually share his opinion, that in your age, it is too dangerous to experience such strong," he pondered looking for the right word, "emotions. And to be honest what you're experiencing isn;t a dream per say. Your body doesn't really rest. In fact it's counter indicative or even harmful, for more than two hours."

"Oh, spare me," Ethel waved at him, "Finestein is an idiot. Everybody knows that. And if you are agreeing with his opinion, then you're an idiot as well… Did you tell him," she grabbed the anchor of forgotten thought, "that if he isn't going to prescribe me the pills, I'll take my service elsewhere?"

"Mama, you know I won't do that! Doctor Finestein has taken care of you for over ten years."

"Blah, blah, blah… Doctor Finestein has taken care of you for over ten years." She repeated, trying to mock her son's voice. "So what!…Look what a mess I am now!" 

Then switching the topic and addressing to her son, she continued, "How could a son of mine be so boring? Ah, " she shook her head with disappointment, "you didn't take after me. You are the mirror image of your father. Miiiiror image!"

"Mother, Please!" the note of impatience wavered in his otherwise patient voice.

"Relax, I am not really planning to change a physician. But did you, at least, try to bluff?"

"Mother, Doctor Finestein is fed up with your bluffs. He doesn't even pay attention to them anymore."

***

"I don't care, I want more pills! All I've got left is seven," she showed David the brown bottle that held the pills which, subsequently, she carefully pressed to her skinny chest.

"Mother, please don't torture me."

"Well, forget Finestein. You should buy them then."

"You know it's not covered by either Medical or Medicare."

"I know that. All the more reason for you to buy them for you poor, sick mother, who by the way, made so many sacrifices for you."

"Mother, please." David made wry grin to the side.

"Yes, she gave away her own house, so that her son could live there with his family."

"Mother, what are you talking about? It wasn't yours! For god sake you just lent me five thousand for the down payment."

"Oh yeah? Who else would have lent you this money? Nobody! And so you have the house only because of me."

"Mother, please… The total down payment was sixty thousand. Your money barely covered the closing costs."

"Oh yeah? But without my money you'd be thrown out of escrow."

"But mother, I gave you back this money with interest."
"Yes, but I could have invested it and be rich by now. I'd be living in a mansion and not in this shit hole you dragged me in!"

"Mother, first of all, please, don't raise your voice. Secondly, it was your decision. Remember, after you had the stroke you decided we couldn't give you the attention you needed."

"Yes, of course, after your wife stopped feeding me."

"Mother! What in the world, are you talking about? You doctor put you on a diet."

"And you listened to him, to that idiot, Finestein? Oh, I hate my life. I want to die!" Quick tear shone in Ethel eyes. She turned away from David and shook her head in distress. "There is no point…, no point."

"Mama, please, don't go there." His expression drifted from carefully held irritation to ample indifference. "O'kay, O'kay, I'll buy you the pills."

***

"This time buy me something better though."

"Better…In what way?"

"Well something better that I have now. All these corny lines…" she shook her head in a pretend disbelief, "I wonder what idiot director comes up with them? I am not a superficial person why do they treat me like one? Buy me something of higher quality, something that would ensure the depth of the feeling."

"But mother, those personalized pills are very, very expensive! One such pill would cost close to twenty bucks. Plus you would need a prescription – because they need to do analysis to come up with your psycho matrix. And these tests are also not covered by Medical or Medicare."

"I know, I know…It's all those damn politicians. A person works all her life and when it comes to the old age…here we go, you can't even get a medicine." She didn't notice how her head shook while she complained. "Forget personalized pills, then. But don't bring me just plain nobodys. Buy me some actors. Give me twenty Cruzes…Ah, how I loved him in my teen years, I tell you… So make it twenty Cruzes, twenty Pitts, I loved him too, he had such a great body, so manly…twenty Depps. He was a man of small stature, but so cute, so elegant…"

"What about Antonio Banderas?"

"Oh, no, no, no… not my type at all. Plus he couldn't even speak English… And of the serious actors… I want Kevin Spacey. I am not always about fun. I like a serious conversation at times."

"How many?"

"How many what?"

"How many Spaceys?"

"Oh, ten would be plenty… What? Why are you rolling your eyes? You know I despise such spinelessness. If you have reservations,say them out loud!"

"No, no. Not a reservation, just a thought… Of all this old actors, only one is alive now, I think, in his nineties and he is totally out of his wits. So yes, they manufacture these pills, but they have to apply special technique called neural averaging or refurbishing… and, trust me, it's not the real thing, far from it. Why don't you try some of the equally good looking, but modern actors like William Cole, or Crebus Vidi?"
Oh, go to hell. All these modern actors are so bi, if not physically, then mentally and so much toward a female. If I'd wanted a female, I'd ask for one, but I'm what you'd call "OLD FASHIONED."

"Whatever. Doesn't matter to me." David yawned and looked at his wristwatch. "Let me summarize. Twenty Cruzes, twenty Pitts, twenty Depps and ten Spaceys, right? And the remaining thirty just a regular blond guy type?"

"No, make it fifteen blondes and fifteen dark haired ones, but make then European, I don't care for hot Latino whatever." 

"Let's see, " David pulled a calculator from his pocket, "seventy by four ninety five, that's three hundred forty six and fifty plus the remaining thirty by twenty five cents – that's seven dollars and fifty so all together it's three hundred and fifty six dollars." he whistled. "Hm…I don't think I can pay that much."

"How much CAN you afford?" she emphasizes the word "can" keeping the question right between direct and rhetorical.

"Two hundred give or take." David punched numbers on the panel. "How about ten Cruzes, ten Pitts, ten Depps and seven Spaceys? That would come roughly to one hundred eighty three and then the rest of it are sixty seven regular ones…"

"I tell you what. I'd rather have twelve of each good looking ones and I can live with one Spacey and then 35 blondes and 32 dark haired ones."

***

"You are going to spend two hundred bucks for these pills?" Jessica snapped at David when he returned to the car. "She's gone completely insane and you are pandering to it."

"What's a big deal?" David turned his head away from her, looking at the stop light, "why can't I make her happy? What's two hundred bucks anyway, a price of a parking ticket."

"That's not the point. It's not natural. She should be content with spending time with her children, her family. She should be happy with that. Especially at her age... Why she is …she is…"

"When she is almost dead?" David melancholically assisted. "Is that what you mean?"

"No. I didn't say that, you did. You have a sick mind just like your mother! I meant when her health is not so good."

"Oh, come on what do you know about happiness? And as far as her life is concern, what else is there for her to life for?" 

***

It was two thirty pm, the time for the midday nap. Ethel took the blue pill from the brown bottle and having swallowed it with the gulp of water, stretched her legs in bed and closed her eyes. In her blurred consciousness, the smell of feces became less noticeable until it totally disappeared.

Ethel found herself sitting on the deserted beach, surrounded by the white sand, dark blue sea, light blue sky and occasional screams of sea gulls. She felt young and beautiful.

He ran towards her smiling. Powerful yet graceful, his body shined like a bronze statuette under the light of the setting sun.

***

"Mirada a esta vieja puta," a nurse sneered pointing at Ethel who breathed heavy and moaned in her bed. A mixture of pain and pleasure seemed extraneous on her face distorted in a grotesque grimace. 

"You mind you own business!" her supervisor snapped. "You better wake her up in two hours sharp. She's paying our bills!" Casting the scuff look above the glasses at the nurse, she stepped out of the room checking something in her notebook.