Chapter 1

My eyes gleam over.

“Did you hear me, sir? I asked if you are certain about your decision.”

Chronic DID leads to terminal schizophrenia. Whoever’d heard of that. Like I would one day die in the hands of one of my created personas. One of my outer egos.

Her fingers weave into mind, as though reassuring me that my choice to continue the trial medicine was a good one. It wasn’t. It was a horrible decision, and I was going through with it. I stare blankly into the doctor’s left eye, past his cornea, past his hazel green iris, deep into his pupil. Like they do in tantric eye gazing, except we weren’t about to have Sting sex.

“Yes.” He squirmed in his seat. He wasn’t used to such brief emotional connection on a personal level.

“All right, you seem pretty adamant. Go to the pharmacy counter and collect your prescription. Come back again in 3 months and we’ll see how it goes.”

Walking through the cold, whitewashed corridor of the clinic, it suddenly struck me.

I’d be a bag of jellybeans, I think to myself, multiple flavours with no original.

“I know,” she said, not bothering to face me, eyes tucked in her heather grey hoodie, white iPod earphones dangling from her conch-pierced ears. I wanted to rip them out so badly just to throw a hissy fit.

“You’d have done it a long time ago if you wanted to.”

God I hate her.

**********

Rewind to 90 days ago, back in this same whitewashed clinic, me sitting on the emerald green armchair. In my hands the room number and the directions, along with a tri-folded brochure titled “YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE WITH THEM”. Admittedly, a really bad title. On the cover, a stock photo of a middle-aged Caucasian man burying his disheveled face in his palms, orange capsules spilt all over his countertop.

Flip it open, and right smack amongst the list of side effects, is a picture of the same middle-aged man in his houndstooth cable-knit sweater over his baby blue Gap shirt, hanging out in the park with his African-American girlfriend and Asian best buddy. The leaves behind them out of focus, just blurry green diamonds dotted with orange sunray polka dots. He is now smiling, his perfect pearly gates contrasted against his tan skin, no longer afraid of the outdoors like he was.

No longer spilling pills and burying his face in his greasy palms.

Flip it over, and there’s the same layout and text, except in Spanish.

“Your turn, sir,” the nurse called out, “just try to relax.”

This place was so impersonal, they call you sir.

“Fuck,” I exclaimed, the numbness of the static shock from the door handle coursing through my fingertips.

“Looks like you have anger management issues too,” the doctor chuckled. “Mister..” he looked at his file, “G. We’re glad you decided to participate in this medical study. This breakthrough in medical science has..”

He droned on. My brain went offline.