Flash Fiction
Three minutes before I picked up my medicine from the pharmacy, I stopped by the cereal aisle. The rows of colorful boxes seemed endless under the bright CVS lighting. Who in the world needs this much cereal?
I picked up a box. Cheesy Pops! “A slow drift into disassociation,” the mascot promised. Serving size: one whole box. I put it in my cart.
I moseyed over to the pharmacy in the back. It was five o’clock on a Sunday. The only people there were a little old lady and I. She reminded me of my grandmother, but not quite.
I nodded at her, and she nodded at me. Polite, but no more than what was necessary. We both looked ahead toward the desk. A woman in a white doctor’s coat was puttering around in the back.
I don’t like doctors’ coats, or pharmacies really. They remind me of why I’m here.
Every time I refill my prescription at a new pharmacy, the pharmacists ask, “Dilaxoiantrone? What’s that?” and I have to tell them, “It’s new. It’s an experimental drug for retrograde amnesia.” And then they say “Dilaxoiantrone? What’s that?”
And then I finally get my stupid pill bottle, and then I walk home, and then I go to the medicine cabinet and put it next to all of the other bottles of Dilaxoiantrone, and I put my Cheesy Pops! next to all of the other boxes of Cheesy Pops!, and then I remember that I have to go refill my prescription at the pharmacy before it closes.
This piece was originally published in Blue Marble Review
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