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epitome of incomprehensibility
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I'm in an experiment. For one week, I'm part of a group of six to ten participants who must sleep in a gymnasium (lights out is at midnight) and be woken up at 3 AM by medical personnel in order to be injected with a supposedly illegal drug. The blond curly-haired boy, he can't be more than eighteen, calls it crack, even though it's injected. We have to take the drug at three times a week or more, and my chart has Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday checked off. So far, "crack" only helps me fall asleep. It seems I got Thursday's injection in the place of Generic East Asian Kim. Generic Kim is good-looking, tall, and arrogant, but secretly afraid of needles.
On Friday night I'm restless, waiting for the injection. I tell Curly and Generic that crack really doesn't affect me, or rather that it has a better effect than my old prescription for lisdexamfetamine dimesylate, because lisdexamfetamine dimesylate tended to keep me awake.
I can see the letters in front of me, lisdexamfetamine dimesylate, but I can't remember what its brand name is. It isn't actually Grown-Up Ritalin, just as Generic is sleepy rather than generic right now. It's past midnight, but the lights are still on and I'm still awake. I fear the mention of lisdexamfetamine dimesylate may be keeping me awake. Either that, or I've become a crack addict in a week.
There's a portrait on the wall in an elaborate gold frame. I notice it as the nurse comes to see me. Her name is Vyvanse. Or Vivian, or Vivienne, or Nimue. She asks me to dance and we waltz past the portrait. She's pretty but about twice my age, with a pouchy chin and greying brown hair. We are dancing to music, and it occurs to me to look for the sound's origin (while failing to notice what's in the portrait; I guess I'll never know).
Anne Hathaway is sitting in front of another nurse, singing. She's wearing a headset and her singing is recorded in spiky waves on a computer screen. After a particularly impressive coloratura trill - very soft, very high - the computer registers "C+20" as her highest note. She smiles a wide and brilliant smile, but her moment of happiness is rudely shattered by Generic, who sits up in his cot and sneers "That's so gay."
Anne Hathaway looks troubled. Her voice seems too motherly as she says "That's not nice.."
...and I find my voice, having stopped dancing. "It's not gay ENOUGH."
This is a triumph, and Curly echoes, "No, it's not gay ENOUGH."
(I wake up at quarter to five, at first upset at missing the 3 AM dose, then realizing the illusory nature of the proceedings. I like my retort, though.)
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