Affected
Alexandre Grizzly
I, Leslie Ann
One/1
Afternoon, Wednesday.
After her session, Leslie Ann pulled out her phone to check the time.
Three-thirty.
She handed her check to the girl at the front desk and turned towards the front door. Its rotating glass panels looked like a giant lawn mower blade; eating people and coughing them back up onto the sidewalk. And vice-versa. Outside she could hear some 'prophet' yelling to pedestrians how 9/11 is a conspiracy and how Area 51 is really in Pennsylvania. Fucking lunatic, she thought. How do I come here, and yet we have assholes screaming at innocent bystanders not even a block away? Oh well, maybe he'll be tackled by some asshole cop, and hit him with his asshole nightstick and the asshole prophet will hit him with his faulty asshole megaphone. She smiled at the thought, but didn't know why. She couldn't figure out why she thought violent things were funny, until she looked at the ceiling. Hanging from it was a sign that said We Can Help. Apparently, she needs help figuring that out.
She saw the hungry glass lawn mower come closer, but she didn't feel the sensation of walking. She felt as if she were floating towards it. When she turned the corner, she dug in her purse, searching for her Ray-Bans and blanks prescription slips. Her Ray-Bans were in a little pocket on the side and a prescription slip at the bottom beneath all of her tampons, crumbs, and pens and pencils. While erasing some pencil marks, she thought about what she could get. The possibilities had about as much variety and a Skittle machine. Limited, but in abundance. Vicodin. Xanax. Zoloft. What she really could go for was some phenethylamine, mescaline, MDMA (otherwise known as "ecstasy") or some LSD. But those weren't available even from behind the counter, sadly for her. She ended up prescribing herself some Prozac.
The thing about fake prescriptions is that first off, and probably most obvious, you have to make it as illegible as possible without overdoing it. Except the line where you write the name of the drug. Classic doctor handwriting. Too legible, and the pharmacy person will look at your writing and signature and see the similarity, and you'll be in deep shit. Too illegible, and She may call the doctor herself and ask what exactly the prescribed you, and well, you know the rest.
The first thing she did when the pharmacy lady took the prescription from Leslie was dump all the pencils out of the little cup that was sitting on the ledge in front of her and throw the cup away. It took her almost a solid three minutes just getting the pens parallel to each other. Then she arranged them by color. Pens separated from pencils. She could not stop. The Prozac should help.
Once the pens and the pencils were updated with the Leslie Ann Code of Organization, she walked to the aisle that held all of the cleaning products. She had to limit herself to five items. Her eyes scanned the shelves endlessly. The tile squeaked under her old brown flats. Her long purple skirt flared out every time she turned around to pace to the other end of the aisle. She had to count every time she turned around.
One...Two...Three...Four...
She brought all of her cleansing, sanitizing, and %99.9 germ-killing products to the counter for the clerk to ring up. Pocket-Kleenex Tissues, $1.73. Lemon- Scented Bathroom Lysol, $3.38. Germ-X Hand Sanitizer, 99¢. Kleenex Box, $1.77. Q-Tips, $1.04.
Total, $9.53, with tax.
Pulling out her change purse, Leslie Ann noticed that either the clerk was staring at her eyebrows, or their reflection in her Ray-Bans. Just to see, she lifted them up a little bit, and so did his eyes. Vain bastard. The two quarters and three pennies made a noise similar to the one made by Yahtzee dice in the red shaker when they clanged against the counter. Carefully lifting her bag off the tile, or whatever it was made of, counter, Leslie power-walked out of the automatic sliding glass doors, and practically jogged to her flat, almost four blocks away.
