PILL

Chapter One : What Happened to Victor?

The sound echoed in my head, the way a foul scent lingers in your nose. A buffeting whoosh caused by a suit jacket nearing terminal velocity. It’s strange how I could know that sound. Terminal velocity is a great name.

What did he die of, terminal cancer?

No, terminal velocity.

The whoosh got louder as he approached. No scream, no warning, just the air being as disrupted as my daily routine was about to be. Then the impact. A flat thud with just a hint of shattered bones and the remaining air forced from his lungs. My eyes were transfixed on the bloody pulp of what used to be Victor Garnier. His head bounced, but eyes remained open. Staring directly at me for a moment, then rolled back into his skull. I wonder if he saw the hole in the back of his head when they did that.

I didn’t know him. Not really. I knew of him. He worked on the thirty-fifth floor, and we often arrived at the office at the same time. We rode the elevator together most days. We would exchange small talk. Pleasantries. Bullshit. Not today. I was late today.

Would I have seen this coming if I had been on time? Could I have stopped this?

Sometimes people forget to take their pill. Sometimes. Maybe Victor forgot. That must be it. Victor’s levels were off. Would I have noticed? The blood spread from the place he landed in an increasingly rhomboid shape, filling the crevices in the stone with brilliant red.

Sometimes I wondered what certain people were really like. How their personalities had been altered by the pill. All these years of pills. They say that’s not a real side-effect. Was Victor always meant to be suicidal? Maybe he forgot to take his pill. Maybe he chose not to take it today.

“I’d top up If I were you.” A man in gray coveralls with a green tablet stepped into my field of view.

“I don’t want to throw off my levels. I’m in a good place,” I answered.

He glanced back at the wet lump beneath the sheet. “Still, take a half. These things can be contagious if you get my meaning.”

I didn’t.

The man pulled a blister pack from his pocket and pushed a pill free. He gave me a wink as he popped it in his mouth and swallowed. “Good place is different for everyone, cowboy.”

I’ve never even seen a cow.

“Name?” He pulled up a roster on that green tablet.

“Victor Garnier, I believe.” I leaned to one side and looked at Victor’s corpse.

“You believe? What sort of answer is that?” He seemed bothered by my response.

“I didn’t really know him.”

He shook his head and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Not his name, Hoss, your name.”

Am I wearing a ten-gallon hat I don’t know about?

“Why do you want my name?”

“You are a witness, no?” He tapped at the screen of that green tablet.

“I heard him falling, and…”

“And?”

“Landing.”

“Right. That makes you a witness.”

“Perry Jacobs. I work on the fortieth floor in…”

“Just your name, Chief. I’ll get the rest of the ident from central. Someone will be in touch.” He smiled and turned away. Obviously done with me.

I headed for the entryway and heard the man say, “Top it up, Cowboy. Even a half will do.”

My pill blister crinkled in my breast pocket as I reached to call the elevator. I’m good. In a good place. I didn’t really know Victor.

“Did you know Victor?” A female voice asked.

The question came so soon after I thought I didn’t know Victor that I was confused by it. “No more than I know you.” There was a woman in the elevator with me. How did I miss that?

“I don’t think we know each other at all,” she said.

“I rode the elevator with him, that’s all.” I pressed the number forty for myself. “Floor?”

“Thirty-five, please,” she said.

“Victor was on thirty-five. Did you work with him?”

“He was my boss.” She fumbled around in her purse and pulled out a blister pack.

I paused a moment. There is a right thing to say in this situation, but I have never been in this situation before. I don’t know what to say. “I broke a shoelace this morning.” She glared at me while she took her pill. Her dark hair was short. A Bob? Or is that a Pixie cut? I can’t tell. Bright blue eyes. Kind yet somewhat judgmental eyes, if that’s a thing. Red lips. She smells lovely, too. That was not the right thing to say.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she replied.

You’re going to make it worse. “I missed my train this morning, was my point. I had to re-lace my shoe, and I missed the train. That’s why I wasn’t here. On-time. On-time to see Victor in the elevator, and…I dunno.”

“Are you a psychologist?”

“No, not hardly.”

“Do you have experience with this sort of thing or with Victor?”

I shook my head. “Neither.”

She directed her eyes to the bank of floor buttons. Probably calculating how much longer she’d need to suffer my presence. “Did you top up?”

“No, and I’m not a fucking cowboy, either.” Whoa, where did that come from?

“Maybe you should.” She tented her eyebrows but continued to face forward.

“Sorry. Yeah, I’ll think about that.” I was rude. That was rudeness. I acknowledge that. I should apologize again. “That was uncalled for. I don’t know what came over me. I apologize.”

She was silent for nearly two floors. I imagine her pill had kicked in by then. “It’s okay. It’s not like people die every day.”

I’m sure they do. Maybe just not the ones we know.

“My name is Perry, by the way.” She hadn’t asked and likely wouldn’t remember anyway.

“I’m Chloe.” The bell rang, and the elevator stopped on thirty-five. The doors opened, and she stepped across the threshold. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. See you around, Perry the not-a-fucking-cowboy.”

I watched her walk away until the doors closed. It’s strange to have these oddly personal moments in a private setting in a public place. With a woman who worked for a man you hardly knew who just fell to his death.

Jumped? Fell? Fell for sure. Let’s stick with that for now.

She was nice to me when she didn’t need to be. Even though I’ll probably never see her again in a thousand years. That’s one of the side effects they don’t mind advertising.

Even temperament.

The bell rang again for me on forty. As I stepped toward the opening door, my foot landed on something. It crinkled beneath my foot. Chloe’s pill blister. She must have dropped it. I placed one foot on the threshold to stop the elevator from closing and bent down for the pills. Maybe I will see her again after all. I retrieved the blister and inspected it.

These are not pills. These are mints.