Little Blue Pills

“Hmm…out of butter. If I don’t have butter, I can’t have my toast, and if I don’t have my toast, I can’t have my tea.” I reasoned to myself out loud in my empty apartment. The flat wasn’t large, but it had a nice little window that looked out over the city. High enough that the view wasn’t too bad, but also high enough that when the elevator was out, which was more often than not, taking the stairs was a cardiovascular endeavor. I would pass other tenants as they groaned and sweated their way up and down to their own diminutive domiciles. I used to feel bad for them and for myself as I watched their poor faces, contorted with the effort of fighting gravity step after step. But that was before I started taking the pills.

All my life, I had struggled with…feelings. Those pesky little things that would crop up from time to time and had a way of driving people crazy. Things like anger, sadness, and anxiety, all those emotions that made life so tedious to get through. After just one visit to my doctor to discuss the internal conflicts getting me down, he had disinterestedly offered me the pills. They weren’t much to look at, just some tiny blue pills in a traditional orange pill bottle with the white child-proof cap that can also invoke feelings of rage and inadequacy in adult users who try unsuccessfully to open them. The effect the pills had was amazing. The first time I used them, I noticed that all of those thoughts and stresses just floated out of my head, and a nice fuzzy haze came over me. Now, instead of having to experience the messiness of existence without a filter, I had a nice, easy ride through life. Sure, happiness, excitement, and surprise also disappeared, but who needed them anyway?

I ruminated on these things as I got ready to walk to the market a few blocks down the road. As I was putting on my socks and shoes, I noticed I had left the TV on, and as I glanced up, a frantic news reporter was going on and on about the ships that had appeared in the sky just a couple of hours earlier. The news anchor was frowning and clearly distressed as she covered the destruction being wrought by the flying saucers now hovering above most major cities worldwide.

“If you’re seeing this, get out of the cities as safely and orderly as you can. The weapons on these crafts are capable of-” She was cut off by the magical power of my TV remote.

“That’s enough of that,” I said to the now blank TV screen. “They’re always trying to keep us worked up about something nowadays.”

I donned my windbreaker and looked around to make sure I had everything. As my gaze wafted over the window, I saw one of the 1960s-style alien saucers drift by. As I watched, it launched a crackling energy weapon that blew up a car parked on the street below.

“That’s going to be a mess to clean up.” I thought as I went to the window and drew the flowery white curtains before exiting my apartment to start the arduous journey downstairs. There was a time when I dreaded this walk and the possibility of running into someone and having to do something truly awful, like make small talk. Indeed, it had been a nightmare of mine, but now, thanks to the pills, I was never bothered by anything. In fact, I could be found humming a little tune under my breath as I made my way down the organized mountain of concrete, one flight at a time, followed by a left turn and another left turn, then repeat.

When I got into the lobby, it was a chaotic scene that I took in with detached ease. People running, a lot of shouting, and a ludicrous amount of jostling. Old me would have had a meltdown, but the new me? I was calm as a cucumber.

“Where did cucumbers get a reputation for being so cool?” I speculated quietly as I floated around like driftwood in choppy waters until the crowd of excitable folk brought me to the front door and we spilled out onto the street. It wasn’t any better out here; the incessant honking of car horns filled the air along with yelling and the occasional explosion. The alien crafts could be seen hovering over the city and, from time to time, would shoot a variety of weapons to and fro with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Their favorite weapon seemed to be lasers, though. There were several buildings sliced with odd angles and curves, making the skyline look like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle.

I started making my way down the street, which was packed with people running this way and that. As I passed my favorite food truck, someone knocked over the tip jar and didn’t stop to pick it up. It never ceased to amaze me how rude some people could be. I bent over to pick up the tips before they got blown away or kicked further down the road by one of these non-cucumber-like people. With a sharp sizzling noise, a laser from one of the flying saucers cut a path across the street, through the food truck, slicing it in half, and across the sidewalk where I had been before I stopped.

“Whew, that was close…almost lost a tenner!” I said, picking up one of the slightly singed bills. “Don’t worry, boys, I think the bank will still take this-” I stopped talking as I looked up and saw the employees jumping out of what was now two different vehicles, or possibly two halves of the same vehicle ( I was never good at philosophy), and joining the mob of people running up the street.

“Hey, you forgot to close your window! And I have your tips here!” I called out to their disappearing backs. I looked back at the food truck in time to see the back half tilt on its axle away from the front half, making it look like the whole truck was a dog having a sit. I put the tip jar on the half counter, and before closing the half window, I added a two-pound coin to the jar. “Never hurts to be kind,” I said as I latched what was left of the awning door and stepped over a smoldering line in the sidewalk.

I made it to the market with relative ease, only briefly having to side-step into an alley as a group of military personnel ran by with rifles ready. I took my hands out of my pockets and plugged my ears as they opened fire on one of the flying crafts.

“Wow, gents, that’s really loud! I mean, I don’t have proper earplugs or anything.” I shouted over the din. The hundreds of rounds they fired all stopped short of the craft and fell bouncing off the ground like metallic raindrops. The saucer turned slowly, and a tube slid out of a previously smooth part of the craft. As we watched, the tube began glowing greenish blue.

“RETREAT!” yelled one of the soldiers who had a fancy crown on the shoulder of his uniform and a snazzy green beret on his head. The platoon of camouflaged military members scattered and ran, most of them heading toward the alleyway where I was standing. I decided to take my leave, having had my hearing assaulted, and started to make my way up the street again, wiggling my finger in my ear trying to ease the ringing. A few moments after I had turned my back on the overly loud ordeal, I heard a large explosion come from the alleyway. The saucer flew over my head toward the car park across the street, and as it did, I saw the metal tube retreating into the body of the craft as a panel slid down, becoming a smooth metallic surface once more.

Upon reaching the market, I noticed the two big front windows were shattered, but I was in luck because the door that was still standing had a sign that read “Yes, we’re open!” with a picture of a little smiling man waving me in.

“Glad to see not everyone has left on holiday,” I said as I stepped onto the linoleum floor, hearing the bits of broken glass crunch under my trainers. The lights were flickering a bit, and I heard running water from somewhere deeper in the building. Before the little blue pills, I had hated going out shopping, the noise, the smells, the…ugh…people. It had all given me so much anxiety that I would try to go when the stores first opened or late at night, right before they closed. Now, with the medicinal help of the little blue pills, shopping was a breeze. I needn’t have worried, though, because I seemed to be the only patron currently. I wandered through the aisles, stepping over fallen crisp packages, dodging puddles of juice, and finally narrowly missing the mess of several dozen eggs that lay splattered out of their little cardboard homes. I arrived at the butter and found my preferred brand. None of that margarine nonsense for me, I was a tried and true believer in real butter, from a cow. I made my way to the counter and gave the service bell a little tap, tap, which resulted in a pleasant “ding, ding,” but was not accompanied by the arrival of the market attendant.

“Hmm, er, hello there? Is anyone back there?” I called at the door leading to the back of the store. After several moments of standing patiently and only two more dings from the bell, I decided the clerk must be taking care of some awfully important business and forgot to switch the sign from open to closed. I dug out the appropriate amount of cash and left it on the counter.

“I’ve got to head home now. You can put the change in the tip jar!” I called out as I headed out of the store with my tub of butter in hand. I took a moment to flip the open sign to the side that said “Sorry, we’re closed,” accompanied by a picture of the same little man from before, only frowning and waving sadly. The walk back to my apartment was less crowded and eventful than the first. It was a warm day, but not too warm, which made it the perfect day for a walk. Only once was I perturbed by the breeze blowing a cloud of smoke across my path, causing a small coughing fit.

“Goodness, don’t people know that secondhand smoke kills, too?” I said to the empty street, waving a hand in front of my face as I stepped through the acrid cloud coming from the nearest burning building. Making it back to the lobby of my apartment building, I noticed it was blissfully empty. I climbed the never-ending stairs while a little jingle from the butter commercial played in my head. The song ended for the third time just as I reached the door and entered my humble abode. I went about my normal ritual of making breakfast. Two slices of whole-wheat bread toasted to crispy perfection, then slathered with my newly gotten butter (from a cow), accompanied by a freshly made cup of English Breakfast. I brought my little plate and cup to the side table next to my plush red chair. The chair used to face the TV, but I found that while on my new pills, I rather enjoyed watching the city as I ate. I opened my flowery white curtains, had a seat in my squashy chair, and took a bite of perfectly buttered toast, mentally praising myself for a job well done.

I raised my cup of tea to my lips and blew a few times to cool it off. As I was about to take my first sip, one of the alien ships hovered into view and stopped in front of my window. I watched curiously through the steam rolling off the surface of my teacup as the smooth metal of the ship slid open and a tube emerged, pointed at me.

“Oh, bother,” I said, staring at the alien weapon as the barrel changed from its metallic hue to a greenish-blue tint. “I think I left the gas on.” And I turned to check the stove.