Jazz shoved the wrapping paper off the table and onto the floor to deal with a day she wasn’t conserving every bit of energy she had, then dropped the rattle and oversize plastic key ring into the lime green bag. She had wanted the toy to be properly wrapped, but that wasn’t going to happen. The bag will have to be enough.
Sitting down she reached for the food she set up so she always had at least one meal to eat every day without the effort of cooking. Pulling out a bar and breaking off a juice bottle, she opened both and ate slowly. Chewing was exhausting but necessary. It released tension in her jaw which built up overnight fighting for sleep. After finishing, Jazz took her phone out and put it on the charging bed on the table and started the connections for social media. Waiting for them to come up, she reached for her pill box and stared at it a while before snapping open Saturday.
She transferred the afternoon pills to a small bottle to take with her to the party and put the bottle beside the bag with the present. After that she took out the two horse pills and swallowed them with a gulp of grape juice. Jazz pulled the final pill out of the box for the day. Her pain pill.
Her medical coverage and disability did not cover all her bills and so she skimped on some medication. The depressant prescription to take before bed to help with sleeping cost the most, so she lived without that. Beside the side effect required a stimulant in the morning, and something to control her heart arrhythmia from the stimulant. The one week she took the depressant, she hadn’t made it out of bed until three in the afternoon a single day.
The pain pill in her hand was the secondary pain controller. She took the one which controlled the flares religiously, but this one reduced the pain in the joints. Unfortunately it was new and had no generic equivalent and the company maxed out its charity offerings before it hit the statistic group she fell into. The little pink capsule cost nearly as much per pill as the depressant and, for best effect, she needed to take it every eight hours, three times per day. She could afford once every two days. The question was when would be the best time to take it today.
If she took it now, she could easily drive to the Elisa’s baby shower, but it will wear off before she drove home. If she took it during the baby shower, she’ll be loopy for the first hour around a bunch of strangers and she didn’t want to embarrass her high school buddy like that. On the other hand, she might need it tomorrow to function after pushing herself all day today. In the end, it wasn’t really a question. She needed to be able to drive safely there. Taking it now, waiting the fifteen minutes for the pill and breakfast to stop taking all the blood in her system and start giving her energy, then waiting the additional hour for the loopy to wear off, she would be good to drive the twenty minutes to her friend’s house and get there for the start of the party at one. She stuck it on her tongue and washed the sour tasting pill down.
Looking at her phone, she sighed and then activated the lockout app. The pink pain pill made her drunk text. She put her arms and head on the table and waited for the lockout alarm to go off. Jazz supposed she could attempt her hair, jewelry, and makeup stoned out of her gourd, but she would need to do it all over again afterwards.
The alarm woke her. Cracking her neck, Jazz felt a lingering pain behind the drugged wall, but it didn’t touch her thinking. If she didn’t need the rest of her medications to actually live, she would fill that prescription happily even with the stoner and addictive side effects. Picking up her cane, she walked quickly to the makeup table in her bathroom and set to making everything perfect. Only an hour left before she needed to go out the door.
A to Z Short Story List Breakdown
Marathon Party (G to M)
4/8/2019 – G is for Gobi
4/9/2019 – H is for Horse
4/10/2019 – I is for Sherbet
4/11/2019 – J is for Jazz
4/12/2019 – K is for Keeper
4/13/2019 – L is for Loss
4/15/2019 – M is for Marathon