What Happened, 3.5

WHATHAPPENED | a fictional memoir
About ~ Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 3.5 ~
Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ Chapter 5.5 ~ Chapter 6

Chapter 3.5 ~ First Meeting

SETTING: A sunlit meeting room, 7^th floor of a hospital named Bethesda North. A dozen people sit in cloth-upholstered chairs ranged in an oblong. The last of a pot of coffee gurgles into a glass pot on a side table. A man in a brown tweed jacket, the left corner of his mouth pursed downward, stands, pulls a Styrofoam cup from a stack beside the pot and pours a cup. He ignores the containers of cream and sugar. A heavy-set woman in a nurse’s jacket decorated with tiny blue-and-yellow flowers  and a white badge that reads “Jacky,” holds a clipboard with a plastic tab at the top that reads ‘Thioridazine.’

JACKY: OK, let’s get started. As agreed, we’ll not be using our real names, so that we all may speak freely.
MOTHER: (Sighs): Why are you doing this? Why are we even here? This is a family matter. You know we love you. This is something for the family. No one else.
SON: (Shifting, reaching down to scratch his foot): What year is this?
JACKY: What year do you want it to be?
SON: I want it to be over. I want to go back.
MOTHER: Back when?
SON: Before. When I didn’t need them. (He stares out the window at the trees. With his left foot, he toes a metal crutch on the floor, the kind with a brace for the forearm). Or after.
FATHER: After what? (more…)