Pharmakos.

Dramatis Personae:
Dan McGlaughlin: 27, full of wishes.
Ari Kaufman: 50-something, doctor.

Dan:
Hey Doc, It always feels good to have to see you again. It's really great to sit in your waiting room, Lunesta Clock, Lexapro calendar, Zoloft pens, Cymbalta paperweights. They should make like, a Phenobarbital Sewing Kit or a Risperdal knife set, wouldn't that be a really bad idea?

Doc:
As always your abstract attitudes and sad jocularity which comes close to the kind of abreaction that might categorize what takes place with you in my office as 'constructive' are always welcome. Why don't you have a seat and we'll get started.

Dan:
"My Doctor said I had A.D.D. he was all 'Blah, Blah, Blah'", Hey what'd you do with the little 'click clack'?

Doc:
Newton's Cradle? I removed it after last session.

Dan:
Why's it called Newton's cradle?

Doc:
Well, I guess because these demonstrate Newton's first and second laws of motion.

Dan:
Oh...like, math?

Doc:
I think this has to do with physics. Although Newton was an accomplished Mathematician as well.

Dan:
Music is the universal language:
I'm just trying to find a decent melody.
Song that I can sing.
My own company.

Doc:
You're quite the philosopher Dan.

Dan:
No, that was Bono, U2.
I remember the first time I heard "Pride" and in parentheses it said "In the Name of Love"
I hate that, like, pick one title.
I liked watching Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird" and I could never parse why the complex taxa of his person was significant.
I think that it was the first time I saw an adult acting like an adult.
He never got mad at his children.
Well, maybe, he got mad and everything but he always sublimated that anger into some kind of parental tactic that educed the appropriate lesson and realization.
I think the comparisons with God are patent: Slow to anger, merciful, just.
I mean, there's hierarchy in science right Doctor?
Why wouldn't there be...?
I'm sleeping like 20 hours a day.
Am I just lazy?

Doc:
Same Symptoms?

Dan:
Well, I can't eat bread, I've developed a tick where I have to flare my nostrils and snap my fingers every couple of minutes and it feels like someone is grabbing me by the hair and pulling me back and to the left every time I hear the word 'Seriously' and every time I see one of those traffic signs that indicates that there is a curvy road ahead.
It looks like a car on wobbly stilts.
Wobbly like unstable, not wobblie like industrial workers of the world.
Communism.
Jewish intellectuals.
You're not a Communist are you Doc?

Doc:
(sigh)

Dan:
No, I'm just messing with you. I feel fine, I'm cool...You hate when I do this.

Doc:
Yes.

Dan:
Sorry.

Doc:
Did you give any thought to what I asked you to do?

Dan:
Yes as a matter of fact I did but I think the list points to a more significant question.

Doc:
Is that it?

Dan:
Yes.

Doc:
May I see it (beat) ... Oh, yeah this is not exactly what I was looking for.

Dan:
I know because what I really want is No More Future. Not in the world anyway, not in travel, not in geography, not in variety, just you know. Interior and Silent.

Doc:
THAT'S crazy, Dan.