I tell myself that I’m going to settle in and feel better soon.
Days go by, but I don’t settle in. If anything, I feel even more awkward. What even are jeans? They used to feel so comfortable, now they just feel like rough tubes that never fit right around the waist. And socks! Socks used to be one of my greatest pleasures, but now they just seem like floppy shoes.
My work is suffering for it too. As much as I try to pretend I give a fuck, I just can’t. My accounts are getting sloppy, I am forgetting to call clients back. On one occasion, I have a client sitting in my office for forty minutes while I eat a bagel. Just eating a bagel while they sit there expectantly. Chew. Stare. Chew. Stare.
Eventually, maybe three weeks or so later, maybe three months, I don’t know, Mr. Rogers calls me into his office.
“I’m sorry to have to say this, Tania, but if you can’t adjust to life back… in the office, we may have to consider letting you go.”
“You’d fire me?” I say it like I’m shocked, though obviously he’s going to fire me. I’m an employee who doesn’t do anything but draw little spaceships in the margins of ledgers and who still occasionally tries to walk through a wall.
“Not happily, but it may be inevitable.”
Okay. I see what’s happening here. They used me. First, they sent me to the most amazing part of the universe with the most amazing guy king and now that I’m back and not ‘fitting in’ they want to get rid of me.
I’ll end up being a burnt-out lady screeching on the street about aliens, wearing some random collection of things that aren’t clothes. I can feel madness creeping toward me from the corners of my mind. I’m still sane in the middle part, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last.
I miss Tyrant in a way I have never missed anyone or anything. I miss his world. I miss the rules of his existence.
“I’ve made an appointment with a doctor for you. Go, talk to him, get yourself better,” Mr. Rogers says. “We want you as part of the team.”
“I’m not sick.”
“You are,” Mr. Rogers says. “And the fact you don't think you are just goes to show how very sick you are.”
I never noticed it before, but Mr. Rogers is kind of an asshole. He sprang the whole alien assignment on me with no warning, and now I’m back all the support I get is a soft-peddled, sort your shit out or get the fuck out.
“Sure,” I say, putting on a big smile. “I’ll go see the doctor so I can feel better and do my job to the best of my ability.”
I could not be more fake if I tried, but Mr. Rogers doesn’t notice because he is fake. The kindly air he’s cultivated over the years hides an almost reptilian maliciousness. He’s a jerk. A big jerky jerky jerk face, jerky mc jerkington…
9 The Jerk
“Jerky jerk jerk,” I finish explaining to the doctor.
“Uh huh.”
The doctor has been making notes almost the entire time I have been talking, though I am fairly certain at least half of them have nothing to do with me. He’s probably writing a novel. Ugh. Is there anything grosser than people who are writing novels? No. No, there is not.
“You’re suffering from depression,” the doctor who doesn’t understand anything about me finally tells me. “I have some medication that should help you sleep and focus at work.”
“Great. Medication. Sounds amazing.”
I’m still pretty good at telling people what they want to hear. It’s a real talent.
“Good. So, start with half a tablet and then just work your way up to a dose where you don’t feel anything anymore.”
“Is that how these work?”
“I mean, more or less.”
I’m not actually sure this is a real doctor. This looks more like a dentist’s office than a doctor’s office. There are a lot of tiny mirrors and some other bigger mirrors and needles. A lot of needles.
I don’t think I should ask if he is actually a doctor. He obviously wants me to think he is, so I’ll play along. I’ll take the pills too, which is also weird because they generally give you a script, and not a bottle from a drawer which also contains paperclips and I think a half-eaten sandwich.
“Thanks, doc. Can’t wait to take a whole lot of these. Any side-effects I should worry about?”
“None.”
“None. Excellent.”
I go home and I throw the pills down the toilet, except for one which I keep for research purposes. I have a vague curiosity about what’s in the pills, and I know a guy who works in a pharmacy. He’s married, has three kids, and doesn’t believe in aliens. His name is Derrick, and he works late because he cooks meth in a she-shed out the back of his house.