Macaron

Your name is ???, and although you are not a morning person, your nurse insists that you get up in the morning anyway.

"Good morning. Here's your breakfast. Don't forget to take your medicine."

... They're dreaded words. Nothing good ever comes of them. They are but twisted echoes of true kindness.

... Can you even say that when you haven't really, truly known kindness?

Hesitantly, you stuff breakfast into your mouth and down the smelly little ball of medicine with a big gulp of water. You think it's gross and hate it with every fiber of your being. The aftertaste is so bitter, and it doesn't always get processed before it comes out. Those days, you've got to deal with its disgusting aftertaste twice, now packaged with the free addition of vile bile from your stomach.

You've been on the medicine for a week. It's supposed to save you.

... Save you from what?



You know your name now: it's... it's, uh...? It has to be ???, right? Yeah, ???. It can't be anything but. Your name is ???, and although you hate the medicine and yourself, you have hope for the future.

... Or, at least, you want to have hope for the future.

You've had no trouble getting up in the morning despite your insistence on staying up far past the hatchlings' bedtimes. You haven't really noticed any other changes in your behavior. You've been too busy with work now that you've got the green light to continue working again under the influence of your new, life-saving medicine.

"Good morning. Here's your breakfast. Don't forget to take your medicine."

Your nurse startles you from behind with your tray of breakfast and noxious-smelling plant-matter. Obediently, you shove breakfast into your mouth and gulp the stinky **** of medicine with a big swig of water. You think it's bizarre and mostly just a ploy for travelling apothecaries. You don't know what it's made of, but you've probably seen the plants it's made from growing somewhere around here.

Filled with sudden resolve, you suddenly want to know what's in this stuff you're taking. After all, you've been on it for what, a month now? You deserve to know.



You're not sure of your name any more. It's been ??? for the longest time ever, but... ??? doesn't seem right. There isn't something right with the name "???," and you don't know what exactly that'd be, besides the fact that it's not yours. Although you never liked rules, you obeyed the ones that told you that if you didn't take the medicine, then you wouldn't get better.

You hate these stupid moss lumps.

Your nurse greets you again, good morning and all that, yadda yadda, and unceremoniously drops a tray with your morning rations and the medicine on it. Defiantly, you take great relish in your breakfast and enjoy the water with it as if it were your last meal. You rub the grassy substance on your teeth a bit to make it seem as if you took it before casting it to the wind, making sure that no one was watching.

It's liberating.

You weren't keen on taking the stuff once you approached your nurse about it to enquire what exactly you were taking. You got vague answers like "various organelles" and "dihydrogen monoxide" when you asked. You've never been so insulted in your life before. You deserve to know what's going into your body.

Today, you were supposed to be on your medicine for five months straight. It was supposed to save you, but you laugh at fate now. It only restricted you. You are free. You saved yourself.



... The thoughts weren't supposed to come back.

Your name is ??? with a margin of error at about 100%. You know that's not your name. The name "???" is just what everyone calls you.

... Everyone except your nurse, that is.

Your nurse always thought it was a great idea to give you pet names from the start. "Sweetie-pie" and "honey bunch," you know, those kinds of sickeningly saccharine, uncreative, and dull names.

You hate them more than the useless leaves that that quack had the gall to feed to you.

It doesn't surprise you that on that morning, you had trouble getting up, that your nurse came in with your breakfast and daily dosage with the same three sentences, meaningless in every way. It surprises you even less that today, you're fed up with it and take action.

What surprises you on that morning is the satisfaction you have whizzing your fists through the air and making hard contact with flesh and bone. You don't let up. The skirmish happens rather quietly, easily drowned out by the white noise of morning bustle in the area. It isn't long before you gently wring out your wrists and watch with satisfaction as your nurse slumps to the ground in a crumpled snarl.

In the back of your head nags a voice that pleads a reconsideration, that the nurse didn't deserve this and that you should go back to being an obedient, productive member of society.

You ignore the voice. You ignore your nurse's bloody pleads for help. You ignore what felt like a weak pulse from your nurse. You ignore the medicine, but you perversely swallow your breakfast and water in front of your nurse, leaving the medicine be.

You leave and never come back.