Blue Pills

Buzz…
The alarm on his phone went off sending tremors up his pillow and his head. Rubbing his eyes he looked at the time. The snooze button seemed so inviting and he fought with the urge to press it. Getting up, he let out a huge yawn and frowned. The Google Calendar app reminded with a beep that it was the last day for him to submit two essays at college. Moreover he had to present a seminar as well. And it was his parents’ anniversary as well. Letting out a frustrated sigh, he hugged his shoulders.

He touched the blanket. Smoothness, softness, warmth, embracing him like a cocoon. The moment he removed it each morning, he felt vulnerable, bare, fragile. Knowing that the familiar feeling was just waiting at the threshold of his muddled mind to engulf him the very next instance, he felt restless with anticipation. And for some inexplicable reason, heartbroken. He couldn't have explained it ever, but that was one word that could accurately describe him at that point of time.

It took a few minutes for the piercing phone ringtone to reach his half-asleep ears. It was his mother. Of course. He barely managed to get up, take the phone and swipe the green button with his thumb before the phone stopped ringing. “Yeah”, he said.
Mother stayed silent.
“Do you want me to wish you a happy anniversary?”, he asked with a strained voice.
Still he received no reply but the pregnant silence. Frustrated, he cut the call and flung his phone onto his bed.

He felt the bottle of blue pills on the tiny table gazing at him, reminding him to swallow the bitterness and suffer the heartburn that would inevitably follow, if he was to survive the day without yet another breakdown or panic attack.

Depression is a b*tch! The open page of his diary, which was torn and pierced because of his aggressive scribbling, announced in huge red letters. Seeing this brought back a million memories and a sense of hopelessness. His window opened to the view of another dirty wall. The sight was just so bleak. He looked at the white flower pot on the windowsill. His mum had a similar one. That one had a money plant in it with yellowing and withering leaves. Just like his dreams. Her puppy Milo was constantly trying to bring it down when he was at his mother's house a month ago. He had imagined that the flower pot being stubborn, never falling, just like his dreams. Was it was actually stubbornness or mere, dull inertia? He wondered if Milo had already broken it. That was a disappointing thought.

Slowly he grabbed the bottle of blue pills and swallowed two of them with a combined sense of fury and contempt and despair. He waited for the heartburn. He waited for the pills to spread its cruel blue veins all over his existence. And once again, before packing up his backpack and leaving for college, the horror of waiting in a dimly lit corridor where eerie music was incessantly played, for the shrink’s assistant to call out his appointment number came back flooding. Only to be officially labeled a loon and be given a disgraceful bottle of pills. A shudder wracked his body and he subconsciously reached for his mother's hand to squeeze, only to remember she was 800 km away, probably worrying about him as she prepared for her lectures at her school. With a bitter smile he grabbed his toothbrush and towel, steeling himself to face a new day, hoping it would be a little different, a little better.