How little it takes to turn the tide of someone’s day
I go to the pharmacy
Earlier today I was in a dark place. A very dark place, maybe the darkest. Now I’m taking the trash out.
I’ve just gotten back from the pharmacy. I am mentally ill. I won’t say what. It’s not really relevant.
I sat in my car, waiting in line, glancing in the rearview to see if my eyes looked weird. Red, like I’d been crying; not really, not unless you pointed it out. The car before me moved. I took my spot outside the window, in the drivers seat, looking up. I sometimes’ve wondered what it looks like from up there.
A man in his 50’s approached the closed window, a rather weathered-looking one. I expected the glum misery one sometimes gets with rural pharmacists; pharmacy technicians—overworked, underpaid, thankless, qualified… register-people. Register-people who hand over stuff that can mess you up, or treat your head, or stomach, or whatever.
The man approached the window as I looked up. He opened it.
“Good afternoon sir.”
I was taken aback. Something about the way he said it.
This was not, in fact, a good afternoon. Clearly, for either of us. Both of us, going about our lives, doing something because we had to — him doing a job that many…
