Carbonated

It was Friday when I came out of my trance, groggy and head
pounding. Three days since I had really seen light, I mean really. When
you get into one of those catatonic dazes, you really don't see
anything except for the faces in your head. The light hurt my eyes even
more, so much that it compounded the pounding. I turned to the white
coat next to me and asked.

"What happened?"

Four days ago I decided to undergo testing at PRP for a new drug called
Xorapine. I saw the ad in the paper. The study paid three grand upon
completion and gave you a place to stay, warm food and clean clothes.
That was all an upgrade over what I already had, so I decided.

"Why not?"

The white coat turned from the monitor it had been facing. Inside the
white coat was a man about forty years old, presumably a doctor for
PRP. PRP stood for Public Relations Pharmacies. It was PRP's mission to
find and develop new and improved pharmaceuticals to better the human
race. At least that's what it said in the pamphlet. Create a tastier
drug, build a better mousetrap. It all made sense to me. The presumed
doctor had a clipboard in his hand and looked up at me.

"You tested very well."

Maybe it was the drug or maybe it was the light, but it sure as hell
sounded like he said I tasted very well. That ain't even proper
English. I majored in English in college and did nothing with it. I
lived at home a few years after I graduated. That is, until my parents
kicked me out for my insatiable taste for alcohol.

Maybe the only thing I loved more than the drink was Coca-Cola, which
may seem counter-productive, but it all made sense to me. My parents
simply couldn't put up with my alcoholic ways, no matter how much
Coca-Cola I drank. The booze was still there. There is still no known
antidote for alcoholism and Coke is ruled out. But boy, do they make
great ads.

One of the ads promised that every one-in-eight Coke drinkers was a
winner. I figured that since I drank at least 8 bottles of Coke a day,
I was a sure thing. So each twist of the cap brought new meaning and
motivation to my life. Each turn meant that my life could change for
the better. Even if I won just another bottle of Coke, it would be all
right. That just meant that I had another chance to win.

But I never won. No surprise there. But the twists were always fun,
whether they were the twist of a cap or the twists of life. The white
coat would agree. He was still looking at me.

"I said, 'How do you feel?' You seem to have relapsed into
semi-consciousness there, Mr. Ozabel."

I had. How the white coat noticed is beyond me, because I always
thought that semi-consciousness was a very intimate, personal item. It
was almost as if white coat was peering out from one of my eyeballs
with a fresh view of the inside, the gray matter. It didn't matter
really. All I knew was where I wanted to be and it was not here. I
wanted my answers and my questions, my cake and my ingestion. So I
asked again.

"What happened?"

The white coat turned very slowly towards me again from the console it
had been facing. Inside the white coat was a man, the same man as
before, only this time, he had one of those white sanitary masks on,
leaving a curtain of doubt that perhaps this was not the same man after
all. But it had to be, unless I lapsed into another semi-consciousness
and the alleged two had somehow switched places. But I guess only he
could tell me that. I was beginning to understand that at Public
Relations Pharmacies, they knew you better than you knew
yourself.

And why not? They had everything on file. Drug tests. AIDS tests. Urine
samples. I couldn't honestly say that even I had any urine samples from
myself other than that of an unflushed toilet in a Jersey restaurant.
They knew how many partners I had slept with, how many STD's I had
cleared. All of this with my consent of course, but at what cost? The
thought of this plethora of information on me began to really get at
me. My head pounded with rage. All I wanted to know was what I wanted
to know.

"What happened?"

They must only respond to questions when asked in threes, because this
time, I got more than just a slow turn from the console.

"There will be a time and a place to answer all of your questions, Mr.
Ozabel. But first, we must ask you some questions."

Ask me questions? I thought that was odd, since they had been
monitoring my every move and breath for the past three days and nights.
They even monitored my brain waves. I guess they can't decipher those
any further than "excited state" and "relaxed state," so they needed me
to fill in the holes. That killed my theory of the mini eye
invader.

"Do you remember anything you dreamt while under sedation, Mr.
Ozabel?"

The white sanitary mask vibrated from the deep and thick German accent
the white coat produced. He was interested in my dreams, much like many
Germans. Dreams are an integral part of German society, whether it be
the analysis or the destruction thereof. Freud said it best, that "all
men are great in their dreams." Why was it, then, that we would ever
decide to emerge from them?

"I remember drinking lots of Coca-Cola, doctor."

"Coca-Cola, you say? Was there anything unusual about this, Mr.
Ozabel?"

"Well, no. I drink quite a lot of Coke each day. Probably too
much."

"Oh, no, Mr. Ozabel. You can never have too much of a good thing,
no?"

I don't know if I agreed with him there. Perhaps it was the "no" at the
end of the statement that caused me to feel that way, but something
else seemed immensely wrong about the whole idea of self-indulgence.
This was all dawning on me at once, that there was something wrong with
me because I belong to the realm of self-indulgence. At that moment, I
decided there needed to be changes in my life. But change comes after
cash, which was what I was at the study for. So I had to attend to the
business at hand.

"Mr. Ozabel...Mr. Ozabel..."

"Huh?"

"Mr. Ozabel, you seemed to have fallen away again. Would you like some
smelling salts?"

Fallen away? From what? Consciousness? Or much more? Somehow, I feel
that there is much more to the conscious and unconscious than just that
distinction.

"No, I'm fine. Next question, please."

"Now, these Coca-Cola bottles..."

"How did you know they were bottles?"

How did they know? Was my mini eye invader theory gaining new
ground?

"I did not know. It was hypothesized. Data from your tests concurred
that a bottle of some sort was being used. Since you said that you
dreamt about Coke, I ascertained that the Coke was housed in bottles.
Judging from your reaction, I assume I am... correct?"

"Yes, but what data? What could possibly be evidence that I was
dreaming of Coke bottles?"

"As I said before, Mr. Ozabel, these things will be revealed at the
right time and place. Now let us continue the survey..."

The questioning continued for another hour. The trance contributed to
that. Every five minutes or so, I would fall away, from reality and
consciousness and flashes of images would appear behind my eyelids.
Moving screens, I call them. You close them and the projector called
the mind focuses in on them, showing both old movies and new ones.
Sometimes the movies are blockbusters, low on plot, high on image, like
when imagining an attractive woman who just walked by as a naked still.
Other times, the images resemble that of an auteur film, scattered and
interpretational, most often coming in the state of daydream trance.
Accompanying these eye films are soundtracks of the brain, musical
renditions of what we're really thinking. Modern technology will never
reproduce the quality of sound or the richness of color as witnessed
between the ears.

However, the richness and intensity of the images have a downside. For
on occasion, the mind will twist, much like a cap, and demonstrate at a
demon's rate the horrors the mind can concoct.

I saw myself kill the first in a matter of seconds. While walking
through a white hallway, I came across the young woman. She was blonde
and slender. Her skin, while pale in most respects, was a radiant pink
on the white backdrop. She was wearing a white robe that draped over
her shoulders. She dropped the robe and approached me, naked. Her
breasts pressed against me and I put my arms around her as she buried
her face into my shoulder. It was a perfect fit, as in all dreams. I
closed my eyes in the hallway because the white was making my head
pound. When I opened them again, she was gone. Where her robe had
dropped, a white table had sprouted out of the floor. On the table was
a bottle of Coke. I reached for the cap and twisted. Instead of the
usual hiss of carbonation, I heard a scream coupled with a snap. The
sound seemed to echo throughout the hall, but I could not tell from
where it came. I dropped the bottle and looked around, then down to see
the woman lying in a heap, neck broken.

Other images similarly followed, each one ending in a body crumpled on
the floor, neck broken. By now I was getting very thirsty. The Coke
bottles called my name teasingly.

"Ozabel!"

"oh, zay bel!"

"oh, stay well..."

The caps were all tightly closed and I struggled with each, screaming
dry screams, white powder spittle flying from my teeth. What did one
have to do around here for a drink?

I struggled with the red cap. My fingers started to ache, blood started
to flow from the nails and my head was pounding. I closed my eyes and
with a mighty twist, broke the seal and collapsed.

My eyes were wide open and the white room was blinding. I wanted to
cry, but it hurt. I wanted to raise my hand to my head, but I could
not. I was not even certain I still had a hand. The white of the room
got increasingly brighter and my pupils felt like pinholes. I shut my
eyes and could see the blood. Then nothing...

"You're a winner, Mr. Ozabel."

The words echoed in my head while my eyes started to open. I wasn't
sure what day it was, but later they told me it was Friday. I had
another one of my trances, they said. My eyes hurt, head pounding, I
was groggy. Who knows how long since I had really seen the light? I
tried to get up but could not. My legs would not listen.

"You're a winner, Mr. Ozabel. A very lucky man. You're still
alive."

"What do you mean? Of course I'm still alive. Why wouldn't I be?"

The white coat next to me looked to his colleague with a confused
glance and turned back to me. There were five other people on the other
side of me, some with pens and notebooks, all wearing medical
scrubs.

"You tried to hang yourself during a medical study. They found you in
the closet hanging from a belt. Your neck was broken and you are now
paralyzed from the waist down, but you're alive."

"What do you mean? I was being monitored! How could that happen?"

A man in a black suit stepped forward. I couldn't see his face. The
light over the bed was too bright.

"We at PRP would like to apologize for any neglect and discomfort we
may have caused. In retribution, we would like to offer you this check
for $500,000 dollars."

He handed me a slip of paper.

"All you have to do is sign this waiver stating that you will not
pursue any legal action towards PRP or its affiliates and that this
event will not be disclosed to the mass media."

They were trying to buy me. I knew it. I always felt this would happen
to me. But I wasn't having any of it. I closed my eyes and entered my
white room.

When I opened them, bouncing on the floor of my hospital room were 8
empty plastic Coke bottles, with the caps removed. And I didn't win a
thing.