Supermarket(42)

“This doesn’t make sense, Lola! Why are you saying this?”

“Flynn, we’ve been here before,” Olivia said, rising calmly to her feet.

“I want out right now!! Where’s Lola? Where’s—”

“Calm down, please,” she said, as two men—also dressed in white—entered the room and grabbed me by my arms. “Please be careful with him,” Olivia told them.

“Get the fuck off me! What’s happening?! Lola, please . . . why are you doing this?” I said, flailing my arms.

“Don’t fight it!” one of the men said just as my elbow collided with his nose. Blood was everywhere.

“No, please!” Olivia yelled. “Be careful with him!”

The enraged man picked me up, slamming me on the metal table. The searing pain in my skull was a harsh realization—this wasn’t another one of my daydreams, this was really happening! And just then, I felt a prick from a needle in my ass. Everything began to fade.

? ? ?

I was jolted awake by the sound of a mug shattering on the ground.

“Goddamn it!” Frank said. I looked around. I was in the break room.

“Now I gotta pick this shit up! Oh, sorry, dude . . . did I wake you?”

“Hey, guys,” said Cara, who was walking in, dragging her leather boots on the ground.

“Guys?” I said. I was coming to.

“Yeah, guys, that’s what I said,” Cara informed me. “You and Frank, duh. Anyway, Frank, I just came in here to tell you Ted needs you to help Rachel with something. I can’t believe he doesn’t know you guys are hooking up,” she added with a chuckle.

“Okay, thanks Cara,” Frank said. As she left the room, he stared at her ass and said, “Damn that little Mormon girl is sexy.”

“Wait a second,” I said, still processing the dream I had just had. “You and Rachel are dating? Since when?”

“Since you did me the solid of getting her number for me. Did you hit your head or something?” Frank asked as he started to walk out.

“Nah, I just had a dream . . .”

I continued as Frank kept walking, almost to the door.

“I dreamt I was going crazy, but . . . I don’t know. You ever have those dreams where it felt so real you weren’t sure if—”

“Look, man,” Frank said. “I’ve been there. And I can tell you from firsthand experience: sanity is what you’re currently dreaming.”

Trying to process what he was saying, I couldn’t tell what kinda joke he was playing. “Sanity is what I’m currently dreaming?” I repeated.

“Flynn to aisle nine for a psychiatric evaluation,” said a voice over the Muldoon’s intercom.

“You’re eyes-wide crazy, Flynn!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I said, starting to feel that all-too-familiar tightness in my chest.

“You can’t leave, Flynn. This supermarket is my home. It’s our home. And if you let this bitch doctor back in, it’s over, bye-bye. And I can’t have that now, can I?”

Was I in the supermarket or was I in a hospital? Was I a character inside of some book? Was I some asshole on a typewriter writing my own fate, solely for the entertainment of readers? Solely for self-validation? Self-preservation? Self-worth? Was I just some creative who was destroying my life for accolades and achievements?

“I won’t stop until you’re back here in Muldoon’s, Flynn. I won’t stop until we’re together again like old times. I need you to believe in me. I need you to believe in me so I can live.”

Suddenly, the floor was made of wax, melting by the second. I was drowning in the tiles. Struggling with every breath, using all my might to stay afloat until . . .

I awoke, unable to move, held down in a bed by leather restraints. The room was dark, yet familiar. As I looked around, tears fell from my eyes.

“What the fuck is happening to me?” I cried.

I was alone, and the clock said 4:17 a.m. I drifted off into sleep, or delusion, or whatever was to become of my weary mind. In that moment, I let go of everything, and then . . . all of it came back.

I woke in the same bed, but the restraints were gone. The lights were on. The clock read 7:14 a.m. When I opened my eyes, I could see Lola.

Or, rather, Olivia Cross.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked.

“The nuthouse,” I replied.

She laughed.

“How do you feel, Flynn?”

“I feel okay . . . but I have a lot of questions.”

“I’ll tell you everything after breakfast. Get yourself something to eat. Let’s meet in my office after,” she said with a smile, putting her hand over mine in a very comforting way.

As I made my way toward the cafeteria, I walked past a man clutching a cup of coffee. He was mumbling to himself, staring at a wall.

“Coffee, coffee, coffee,” he said.

He was the same man from the supermarket—the one I would see every day. Joe! I walked around the place; it wasn’t what I imagined a nuthouse to be like. Instead of it being full of crazy patients rocking back and forth, screaming and drooling over themselves, it was actually pretty quiet. The part I was in looked like a freshman dorm common area. Patients were reading and talking among themselves.