Little White Pill

Damian stood in line at the cloning clinic. The sterile environment made him slightly anxious, though the pill was supposed to help with that. Everything was gray and smelled faintly of antiseptic. The longer he stood here, the more he wished to go home, but he had a civic duty to reproduce at least once. A nurse pricked his finger and held the blood up to a machine. 

“I hope you’ve been taking your pill,” she said. The machine dinged, and the woman smiled. “Good, you can go ahead.”

Damian stepped into a small cubicle. A computer sat on a gray desk. The Prime Minister’s face materialized on the screen, a floating head in a sea of gray. An angry birthmark dominated the man’s splotchy skin, his mouth moving out of sync with the words coming from the computer.

“Love is a wicked thing that drives a wedge between man and woman. To want is to be constantly disappointed. Desire has no place in this modern age. The more you give in to your base desires, the more you weaken the institution. You do not want to be like the Outsiders, with their diseases and bloodshed. So, take your pill. Reproduction is not for everyone, merely the select few. The Institution chose you because your genes are compatible with its vision. Count yourself lucky.”

 A camera on the computer flashed, blinding him. His picture popped up, showing the same short, cropped hair and gray suit that had been his preference since starting the pill. He felt no pride in his image. There was no reason to stand out, no one to attract. 

Damian scrolled through a list of women, some ugly, some pretty, though he couldn’t really tell them apart. Damian would meet none of these women, never touch them. He just needed to know which one would make an obedient child. A child she would never meet. He clicked on one woman who had friendly eyes. Blue, unlike his boring brown. 

The machine showed Damian what his child would look like in twenty years, his face an odd amalgamation of him and the woman on the computer. The image unnerved him, like looking at an incorrectly edited picture of himself. His heart raced, his palms growing sweatier by the second. Damian couldn’t do this. He was no father. He didn’t want to raise a child alone. 

Damian backpedaled, bumping into a nurse. She spilled a tray of metal instruments, causing every eye in the place to look at him. He flushed.

“I-I’m not feeling well,” Damian said. “Excuse me.”

Damian stepped outside, grateful for the fresh air.

A woman stood near the clinic door with a picket sign which read: Love sets us free.

She had dyed her hair red, a choice that was not illegal though it might as well be. Her shirt exposed her cleavage, though Damian didn’t feel the need to look complements of the pill.  

“Don’t let them pacify you,” she screamed. “We’re meant to feel. They want us to be numb puppets that do whatever they want. None of this is right. Can’t you see that? We’re supposed to love and fuck and everything in between. Love isn’t what they say it is. It’s not gross or evil. It’s wonderful, like a hug times a thousand.”

The woman spotted Damian and smiled. “You’re sort of cute. Fancy a shag?”

Damian felt color rise to his cheeks, an unfamiliar feeling. He took the pill this morning. Maybe he needed a second dose. 

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Don’t you feel anything?” She grabbed both of his cheeks and pressed her lips to his. For a moment, he felt a heat stir in his chest, then it was gone. 

“You haven’t been taking your pill,” Damian said. There was a feeling beneath his numbness, but it was distant, buried beneath a chemical blanket. 

She leaned close and whispered in his ear. “Do you know why they don’t want us to love? Because love knows no nationality, no boundaries. Love counteracts hate and without hate, they can’t control you. The Outsiders aren’t the enemy. They are lovers, not fighters.” 

Damian didn’t know what to say or think. All he knew is he wanted to kiss her again. He shook his head and took a step back. 

An Authority vehicle pulled up outside the clinic, their purple lights flashing. Two officers stepped out of the cruiser; their chrome helmets unreadable. Damian often wondered if they were even human under there. 

When they spoke, their voices sounded electronic. “Ma’am, you are making a scene. Your clothing shows you’re not taking your medication. You know the punishment for such behavior. You’ll have to come with us.” 

“Oh, bite me, you fascist pigs,” the woman said. Damian’s jaw dropped. He had never in his life heard someone talk to an officer that way. They took out stun batons, the sound like a thousand birds chirping. 

“I will not repeat myself,” the officer said.

The other officer turned to him. “Nothing to see here, sir. Keep walking.”

The woman spat on one of the officer’s helmets. He backhanded her across the face, blood falling from her mouth to the pavement. Damian watched on, numb. He should intervene. The woman wasn’t hurting anyone. She looked up at him with pleading eyes, but he couldn’t keep eye contact. Instead, he studied the blood on the pavement as the officers grabbed her and ushered her into the car.  

The car projected one of the officer’s voices, “Take a long hard look, citizens. This is what happens when you don’t take the pill.” 

With that, they were gone, leaving Damian with his thoughts, which were a jumble. He felt like he should have done something, but she was breaking the law. Everyone knew you had to take your pill. It kept you sane. It kept you normal. 

The woman scared him, so surely, she should get help, and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of her lips on his.

Damian couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking of the woman with the red hair. If that was what being off the pill was like, he never wanted to stop taking it. When morning came around, he walked to the bathroom and opened the mirror cupboard. A translucent container with a child-proof lid stared back at him as it had every day for years. 

Damian grabbed the container and twisted off the top. He poured one of the little white pills into his palm. Such a small thing, keeping him from a world of messy feelings. He had never missed a day in all those years of taking it. If he stopped, would he be like that woman? What if she was right? What if it was better to feel? Surely missing one dose wouldn’t be the end of the world. 

Damian put the pill back in the bottle and closed the mirror. Sweat covered his face. He smiled, the expression seeming strange on his face. When was the last time he smiled? After an hour, his small apartment seemed more colorful, even the shades of gray taking on hues of blue and green. He thought of the woman, wondering if she was safe.  

A sudden impulsiveness started in Damian’s gut, urging him to get out of this drab room. He rummaged around in his closet until he found the one piece of clothing he owned that wasn’t gray. A red jacket, handed down from his father, back before the pill was a prerequisite of citizenship. Damian slipped it on. It still smelled like his father, cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. Two substances that were now forbidden. 

Damian left his apartment, receiving stares all the way to the garage a block away. He thought he would hate standing out, but he sort of liked it. People never noticed him. He drove through mind-numbing traffic to seventeenth street, where the precinct nearest to the cloning clinic sat. It wasn’t until he stood in front of the intimidating concrete structure that he realized why he was here. He wanted to bail the woman out. 

This was unlike him, acting so impulsively. Damian thrust his sweaty hands into his coat pocket, one of them wrapping around two objects. A pack of cigarettes and a lighter. They must have been in there for decades. 

Damian opened the heavy glass door, stopping at the scanner right inside. Shit. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. The machine would show he wasn’t taking his medication, and then they would lock him up too. He stuck his hand in and a needle pricked him. It dinged, the bar lifting and allowing him through. Damian sighed. He must have enough of the drug still in his system. 

A metal desk dominated the cold room, forming a u-shape. A sign above it read: Obey the Authority. An officer, absent his chrome helmet, sat munching on a pastry. 

“Is this an emergency? Do you have an Outsider to report?” the man asked as he approached. 

“Well, no,” Damian said. 

“Then you can use our app. It has all the information you could need.”

“Actually, I’m looking to bail out a friend,” Damian said.

The man sighed and dramatically set down his pastry. “Name?”

“Um, I don’t exactly know.”

“Some friend,” the officer said. 

“She has red hair,” Damian said. “They arrested her while she was protesting.”

“Oh, that bitch. She’s being held without bond. Have a good day.” The man resumed eating his pastry.

Damian’s mind raced. “Do you have a bathroom?” 

The man pointed to a dimly lit hallway. Damian found the bathroom at the end. He ran some cold water and splashed it on his face. He came all this way. If they denied bond, that could mean only one thing. They were sending her to one of the city’s rehabilitation centers. From all the rumors he had heard, it was a glorified torture facility. No one walked away “rehabilitated”. No one walked away at all. He had to do something. 

Damian wiped his face with a paper towel and threw it into a trashcan overflowing with paper towels. He looked up. Sprinklers lined the ceiling. Damian took out the cigarettes. Three white cancer sticks sat inside, aged and lightly crumpled. 

Damian put one in his mouth and struck the lighter. Sparks. Shit. He struck it again. Nothing. On the third strike, he got a meager flame. Damian lit the cigarette and took a drag. He coughed. The smoke burned, but at least it meant he was feeling something. He took two more puffs and threw the cigarette into the trashcan. 

Within moments, a sizable fire was burning. A second later, the sprinkler started. He ran out of the bathroom, screaming. 

“Fire! Fire!”

Smoke poured out of the bathroom behind him. The officer stood up and ran to the bathroom. Damian ran over to the desk and found the man’s key-fob. No one else came rushing out, though a camera overhead blinked its red eye. 

Damian swiped the key-fob at the sensor outside the holding cells. The door beeped and swung open. He passed half a dozen drenched prisoners before finding her. A bruise marred her lip, her red hair already plastered to her head. Her eyes lit up with recognition. 

“It’s you,” she said. “Did you do this? What happened to you? Yesterday you were a limp noodle.”

“I listened to you,” he said. “I stopped taking the pill.”

She smiled. “You won’t regret this. Let me out. I have a place we can go to. Somewhere safe, where the people are like us.”

Damian unlocked the cell, and she wrapped him in a hug. His heart pounded in his chest. She smelled of sweat and something sweet underneath. He didn’t want to let go, but they needed to get the hell out of here. Damian grabbed her hand and ran for the door. 

One of the Authority stood in his way, his chrome helmet reflecting their image back to them. They looked cold, wet, and scared. 

“You rats are going away for a long time,” the man said. “Hell, you might not even make it to Rehab. Not after this little stunt.” He took out his stun baton. 

The woman stepped forward and kicked the officer in the groin. He doubled over, though not before pressing the baton against her neck. She fell to the ground, convulsing. Damian grabbed the base of the baton and they scrambled on the ground for control over it. The officer struck him in the face, but Damian held on. 

The woman recovered and took the officer’s helmet off. She bashed the officer in the nose with it and he let go of the baton. Damian turned it around and stuck the officer with it, not stopping until he was sure the man wasn’t getting up. 

“Let’s go,” Damian said. Despite the sheer panic in his body, he laughed. This was the most alive he had ever felt. 

They made it out of the precinct without another interaction and made a beeline for his car. They piled in and breathed a sigh of relief. 

He looked at her. “Where to?”

She laughed. “You’re fucking crazy. You don’t even know my name.”

“What’s your name?” he asked. 

“Laila,” she said. 

“Damian. Nice to meet you.” 

“Just get on the interstate,” Laila said. “I’ll guide you from there.” 

When the adrenaline faded, his thoughts resurfaced from wherever they had gone. Why was he doing this? He just threw away his whole life for some woman he didn’t even know. The Authority would hunt him down. Damian would spend the rest of his life behind bars. Without the pill, he had no way to shove these feelings down. His breath came quick, his chest filled with a dull ache. He needed to go back, prove that he wasn’t associated with this woman. 

Then she kissed him, and all those pesky feelings melted away, to be replaced by something he had never felt. It wasn’t love, but it might as well have been. She smiled at him as though she knew what he was thinking. 

“Nice, right? I told you that you wouldn’t regret this. There’s more where that came from. Now stop looking at me like a puppy dog and keep your eyes on the road.” 

They passed a billboard, their faces side by side on the massive screen, along with the word Outsiders. 

“Well, it’s official,” Laila said. “We’re fugitives. You didn’t have to do this, you know. I made my choice.”

Damian grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. In this world of gray, it was the warmest thing he’d ever felt. “And I made mine.”