Pour Me Out

CW: Substance Abuse, Mental Health

My old TV bathed the living room in pale blue light as advertisements interrupted a particularly tense hand of the professional poker tournament.

Not that I particularly cared for poker. I didn’t care for particularly anything these days. None the less, I made a game out of the commercials. Every time it was a commercial for a medicine, a lawyer, or a politician, I took a drink. When the poker tournament came back, there was one swig left in my bottle.

My leg bounced and skin crawled, anxiety and loneliness creeping in. What kind of sad sack does this, sits alone in the dead of night and watches poker? The tournament faded to black once more and I found myself almost excited to play my game. But the single commercial that ran this break was different. The only sound for a good ten seconds was the low, metallic hum of a singing bowl before the screen lit up with a carousel of relaxing blue and white images.

A telephone number flashed on the bottom of the screen, the ostentatious red numbers markedly out of place amongst the serene imagery of beautiful women in bathrobes, preparing for massages and trickling creeks and waterfalls. The narrator’s voice chanted the number as if it were a prayer — calm, welcoming. They promised help, clarity, a different way forward in your god-awful, miserable life. Their logo, a line-drawn lotus flower with swirls pouring out of it faded from screen, replaced by the poker players.

Well, that counted as a medicine commercial, I decided. I gulped down the last of the whiskey straight from the handle and discarded the bottle on the floor with the other dozen or so littering the carpet. I should really clean all of that up. Probably. Maybe. But who cares? Who am I trying to impress anyway? No one. I was alone. The people I loved left me and the unyielding ache in my chest would never go away no matter how I tried to drown it.

I pushed myself from the couch and the room spun. I wobbled, but managed to stay upright this time. Even inebriated, I knew I wouldn’t be able to manage a trip to the corner to grab another bottle of the good stuff.

Lucky for me, Charley left a bottle of tequila here when she packed up and left me last week. The day before the five year anniversary of my father’s death. Said I had problems, that I didn’t process my feelings in a healthy way. Bitch.

Now where was it again? On the fridge? In the pantry? Either way, it meant a trip to the kitchen.

 Suppressing the wave of nausea that moving my body created, I reached for my telephone and punched in the phone number still chanting in my head. I don’t know why, really. I wasn’t interested in “a different way forward”. I was interested in getting and staying very drunk.

The other line rang once, and before my slow fingers could hang up, the call tree menu started up.

“Thank you for contacting Atraxia Wellness: Clear your mind. Reset your life. Please listen to the following menu options…” a pleasant, though obviously robotic, voice chimed through the speaker. I reached for the tequila and a mug, cradling the phone between my shoulder and ear. I don’t know why, but I felt almost guilty for thinking about hanging up. 

 My hands were trembling, so tequila sloshed partly into my mug but mostly on my counter as the voice continued. “For inquires about spa packages, press one. For our intravenous refresh, press four. For outdoor wellness retreats, press seven.” They had more options than I’d ever heard. Even sober I wouldn’t be able to keep them straight.

I threw back my shot of tequila. “For information on the Pour Out Procedure, press zero,” the voice said.

Wasn’t that the one on the television? That seemed right. I don’t remember them saying anything about veins or hikes or yoga or…

I jammed my finger into the zero. “Please wait while I connect you,” the pleasant robot said.

The hold music— or hold nature sounds, I suppose— blared in my ear as I abandoned my mug and brought the whole bottle of liquor to the couch with me. Glorious, wonderful, drunken oblivion was only a few sips away.

My goal for the past several days had been to get absolutely plastered and forget every single bad thing that ever happened to me. Charley leaving, my father dying, losing my childhood golden retriever Rex, breaking my leg at soccer as a kid. None of it registered, none of it ached like a bruise, when oblivion finally found me. 

I’m happy to say that I’ve been managing to meet my goals the past three nights. Just call me an overachiever.

The nature sounds in my ear stopped abruptly. “Thank you for calling Atraxia Wellness, my name is Xander, how may I guide your wellness journey?”

Oh, brother. How may I guide your wellness journey? Really? I should just hang up. “Hi Xander, I’m Lowen? I wanted more information on the Pour Out Procedure?” My words slurred together, and what the hell was happening to me? Why was every sentence a goddamn question? Why wouldn’t I just hang up?

“Ah, great! I can definitely help you with that!” Xander laughed. I belched. “Lucky for you we have a consultation for the procedure available tomorrow. Would that work for you?” He was too chipper given the late hour.

“Let me look at my schedule,” I tipped the bottle back for a quick sip, sweet release inching closer. My job and I recently parted ways. I knew I was free. “Yeahthat’llwork.” I hoped I sounded eager and not intoxicated.

Xander gave me the address to the wellness center. What did wellness center even mean, anyway? “I’ll see you tomorrow at 9 A.M!” The line went dead.

As my phone app closed, the time on my phone’s screen shone bright. It was 2 A.M. I knocked back the last bit of tequila in one, two, three large gulps and finally fell into the quiet darkness. And though I knew all this would do is blur some of the pain, put some distance between myself and my godforsaken feelings, that was enough for tonight.

The bus driver shot me one of those no-lip, sympathetic smiles as I darted through the half-open bus doors. I was fifteen minutes late, but I made it, and that’s what counts. Besides, there was a certain rush, exhilaration, excitement, to showing up winded by the run from the bus stop.

Atraxia Wellness Center was an enormous steel, stone, and glass box with an impeccably landscaped front garden and not one, not two, but three water features on the walkway leading to the front entrance. I gulped, nerves rising. I was a grubby mess that smelled like a liquor cabinet, still slightly drunk from the night before. There was no way I wasn’t going to draw attention.

The doors swung open and a tall, sculpted man in a white polo shirt greeted me. “Lowen, welcome! I’m Xander. It’s great to meet you in person,” he smiled, the expression not quite meeting his eyes, and ushered me inside.

“Hi,” I waved like a child. My cheeks flushed, thumb picking at the pad of pointer finger. Was I really such an inept idiot? Good god. 

“If you’d follow me, I’ll take you to the consultation chamber.” He turned on his heel and began walking toward a bank of elevators.

Still slightly buzzed, I couldn’t contain my chortle, but I still followed close behind him. “Consultation chamber. Really?”

He pressed the call button and the metallic tube buzzed to life. “We take ourselves and our work very seriously at Atraxia. We are all about Clearing Minds and Resetting Lives here.”

There was no malice in Xander’s voice, no anything. He was simply stating a fact. Shame coursed through me, cold and sharp. I stared at my tattered shoes until finally, the elevator chimed and we descended into the heart of Atraxia Wellness.

The consultation chamber, as it turns out, was a lot like a therapist’s office. There was inoffensive patterned wallpaper, plush armchairs, and an end table holding tissues and a dish of hard candy. Across from that setup there was a sleek marble desk. It seemed out of place in the inviting space. 

As I sat in one of the arm chairs, Xander closed the door and went to sit behind the desk. The nape of my neck prickled. It was worrying that the man that talked to me on the phone, as a result of me calling a number from a poker tournament commercial, was also the man that was going to talk me through a complicated medical procedure. It’s not just my buzz telling me that’s weird, it’s every fiber of my being.

Instead of running out of the “chamber” I folded my hands in my lap.

Xander smiled the same dead-eyed smile from the door. “The Pour Out Procedure is the latest advancement in well-being services here at Atraxia,” he started the moment our eyes met.

I nodded for him to proceed.

“Before I tell you more, I have a question for you, Lowen. Remember, this is a safe space,” he made some gentle gesture with his hands. “What’s the worst pain you’ve ever felt?”

I blanched. “You’re serious?” 

He nodded, so I continued. Fuck it, right? What do I have to lose? “Um, I guess losing my father was really bad. I didn’t eat for a week because I couldn’t stomach the turmoil. But that was five years ago now. And I… well my partner left just a week ago and I thought we would be together forever. That hurt, too. She made it seem like it was my own fault things were ending. I didn’t know I could be that angry and confused,” my voice was thick, tears teetering at the corner of my eyes. 

Xander floated over to me and perched on the arm of my chair. His voice was gentle, kind, as he spoke. “One hundred percent of people that come into this room, that have this consultation, mention some kind of emotional pain when I ask them that question.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks, fast and warm. Xander reached around my shoulders and handed me the box of tissues. “Now, Lowen, what if I told you the Pour Out Procedure could get rid of all of that pain forever?”

“I would say you’re lying,” but hoping you aren’t, I thought.

His laugh was smooth. “Emotional pain is the one thing standing between you and individual wellness. Emotions, good and bad, are the greatest barrier anyone faces to achieving clarity and starting their life fresh. Do you want to start your life fresh?”

“Good and bad?” Did I hear him right? That seems like a steep price to pay.

“Yes, the Procedure removes all emotions. But Lowen, look at yourself - are those good feelings doing anything for you right here, right now? Can you even access them through all this grief and pain? I am promising you a life with no more crushing defeat, bitter disappointment, or missed opportunities at happiness. Is that not worth it?” He procured a clipboard, sliding it onto my lap.

An inhuman sob ripped from my chest and my shoulders sagged with the weight of my choice.

An hour after I signed Xander’s clipboard, I was in Atraxia-branded white scrubs waiting to be called into the operating theater. Xander insisted that I call it a theater and not a room. My teeth chattered in anticipation. Or maybe in panic. Or maybe just an excess of adrenaline in my blood. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.

A hidden door in the shiny white wall cracked open and a women in colorless medical garb stepped into the waiting room. Only her eyes were visible, but they reminded me of Charley’s, clear and blue and bright. I would miss those eyes, their kindness, their caring. I laughed at myself. No, actually. I wouldn’t.

The woman cleared her throat. “We’re ready for you, Lowen.” 

I shot from my chair, finally sober enough for the room to not spin and followed her into the next room. 

Every surface practically glowed, the sterile white tile reflecting the blue fluorescent light. I squinted as the other figures in the room refocused. It smelled strangely floral and not in the least bit sterile. In the center of the room there was a silver contraption that looked like a dentist's chair with a nylon strap on the headrest.

Xander explained when I signed the paperwork that I would be awake through the procedure, that it’s necessary to remain conscious to make sure the procedure is working.

“Hey, Lowen,” Xander greeted me, stepping away from the small group of Atraxians. “Are you ready to reset your life?”

I rolled my eyes. So corny. I just needed all of this suffering to end. I didn’t care about resetting, I only knew that carrying on with the burden of feeling was not an option. I nodded and Xander escorted me to the weird dentist's chair. 

He strapped my head in. Instinctively, I tried to wriggle my way free, but then the rest of the team descended, strapping down my arms and legs. A needle pricked my bicep and the urge to break free disappeared.

“Take a deep breath, Lowen,” said a voice I didn’t recognize, but I obeyed. “Good,” they praised.

The praise felt good, warming my chest. The chair whirred and I tipped backward.

Then, it started.

A cold wave of grief washed over me, numbing my hands, my feet. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I was being hollowed from the inside out. Every memory, every thought, tinged by loss, by the gravity of despair flashed before me. The room lurched and tears blurred my view of the blank ceiling. I was falling into an endless black pit and there was no turning back. I started shaking, reliving every one of my most miserable moments, some of which I buried away, forgotten from years gone by.

It felt like it would never end, time stretched on and on and on, until finally a voice sounded behind me. “Lowen, can you tell us about your father?”

“He died of a heart attack five years and one week ago. His name was John, he was a teacher,” I recited, my voice flat. I knew that this should stir something in me, but it didn’t. It couldn’t, no matter how it tried to tug at the feeling. My hands began to tremble and I whimpered. “What-”

“Next,” someone said.

This time, the sensation was searing, like fire cascading across my entire body. My stomach turned and I retched. Gasping for air, I tried to break my arms from their binding but it was no use. I was crushed beneath the weight of the unknown, the uncertain, the unimaginable. Hot tears spilled from my eyes and would not stop. I wanted to claw my skin off, be free of the sinking worry until, finally and suddenly, it relented.

“Lowen, how do you feel about your drinking?”

“I drink too much, and it would probably be better for my health if I tried to limit my intake.” My voice was so matter-of-fact that it was amusing. I laughed hysterically. How ridiculous was that?

“Almost there, Lowen.”

A pleasant warmth, like a hug, enveloped me. My skin twitched and vibrated with pleasure, excitement. The corners of my mouth pulled toward my eyes and the blurriness of my vision disappeared. There was a woman, Charley, clouding my mind’s eye. Her eyes were a clear blue and the memory of her smiled at me. Then, it tunneled away, eventually dispersing like paint in water. 

Everything went black.

A shoulder shake roused me. I was no longer in the operating theater. Instead, I was on a soft bed surrounded by plush pillows. Xander smiled at me. He was holding a clear beaker filled with liquid. 

“Hello, Lowen. I have one more question for you. Do you know what this is?” He placed the beaker in my hand.

I held it in my eye line, examining it from many angles. “It’s my extracted emotions. There are many colors, the most prominent of which is gold,” I paused, trying to remember what my paperwork said about the different colors. “This indicates that majority of my experienced emotions until the Pour Our Procedure were positive, like happiness, love, and amusement.”

The liquid swirled, thick and viscous. “There are also a few spots of midnight blue, indicating negative experienced emotions like grief, anxiety, and depression, but not enough to overwhelm the gold.”

Xander smiled. “Very good. You’re ready to pour them out. Follow me.”

He led me down a well-lit hallway to a large room. In the center of the room, there was a large pit, dark and deep. Around the pit were others dressed the same as me — white Atraxia Wellness scrubs holding beakers filled with once-felt emotions that would never be felt again. I couldn’t help but think about what might have happened if each one of us had found each other before we found Atraxia. 

We all stepped toward the pit together. My heart was beating fast, circulating the blood I needed to operate my legs and arms. Peering into the darkness, I saw a pool of gold liquid. 

Clear your mind.

I dumped the contents of my beaker into the chasm. 

Reset your life.