Tara Kaloz

Dosed


“Vanessa, you’ve gotta hold him down better than that.”

The child struggled under her weight, pushing and straining, mouthing to bite.

“I’m trying. He’s stronger than he looks.”

“Try harder.”

A fluorescent tube flickered overhead and would soon need a replacement. The child’s thick, puffy coat lost its warmth on a chair in the corner. His boots and their snow cakes puddled on the carpet. The sink dripped. The counter was lined with the whiteness of sterility and its trappings.

The man helped to steady the child with his free arm, leaning down into the shoulder, pressing his grip into the undeveloped muscle of the forearm. The child’s paleness turned to a reddening pink.

“Babe, don’t you think these inoculations, well, that they’re inherently wrong?”

“How do you figure that?”

“I mean, we get them so young. They’re not allowed to voice their opinion, their thoughts on the matter. They don’t have a choice.”

“And what would they do with one of those?”

Vanessa frowned.

“Listen, we get the parents. They sign the paper. They make the decisions. End of story.”

“So young, though. It doesn’t seem necessary. Why, in a few years, they could decide for themselves.”

“That’s exactly the point.”

The child whimpered.

“I think you’re hurting him.”

“They have to learn, Nessa. They have to learn not to fight this.”

“That’s the thing, though. The fight or flight of it all.”

“Not now.”

“Yes, now.”

“He’s a fighter, can’t you tell? We need to subdue this kind of behavior.”

“That’s it. You see, you’re wrong. This kid, all of them, all he wants to do is to flee, fly, whatever. Take flight. When they find that their ability to do so is inhibited, what else is left? Of course, he fights. The whole thing should really be, if not flight, then fight.”

“That’s enough. You got him?”

“Yes.”

The child’s muscles became softer, the body lax. The frightened eyes of the child glazed over, the pupils dilated. They became those of a fawn, helpless in their surrender. Without any logical choice. The eyelids dropped into atrophy.

“Here, take this.”

The needle’s glisten was tinted with a sheen of red. Vanessa wiped the tip in her cloth, careful to bunch the fabric where she squeezed. The man’s white back was turned away. His gloves stuck out of the small and overflowing waste basket. He finished washing his hands in the sink and turned to face her.

She was tipping the emptied tube around in her hands and the cloth. A droplet of the opaque liquid slid from one end to the other in a slow measured crawl, leaving a trail behind, which also slipped away and back into the droplet. “How much of this did you give him?”

“Enough. The new dosage. It’s a precaution really.”

“Says who?”

“Does it matter? You need to loosen up.”

“It most certainly does matter. Sometimes I wonder if I know you at all.”

“Would it be too hard for you to act your age? Jesus, Nessa, act like a fucking med student.”

“Technically, I’m not even a student anymore.”

“Hey, knock it off.” He cupped his hands over the ears of the child, now drooling onto the paper-lined table. “We don’t need an MP suit here.”

“For crying out loud, the kid’s unconscious. He’s practically comatose with the amount of chemicals in his veins.”

“Just the same. You’d be surprised what the unconscious mind picks up. One can’t be too careful these days.”

Vanessa disposed of the syringe and returned to the side of the table, next to the boy. She ran her hand over the child’s face and something warm and subtle pulled from somewhere inside her and at the corners of her mouth.

The child sniffled, wriggling up his nose like a small and innocent animal. Defenseless. One of his socks had been stretched past his toes from the tug of the boots. Vanessa was gentle with his leg as she pulled the sock over the foot to fit the grooves made by the heel and big toe, back into its place.

“You know, Mark, this isn’t right. I knew this was a bad idea.”

“Vanessa, there is no turning back now. Promises were made. The money’s been transferred.”

“Ever hear of a refund?” She made a shushing sound as she eased the boy into her arms. He was heavy against the smallness of her body. Her muscles strained and tensed into their role.

“I can’t let you do this.”

Vanessa didn’t turn around. She talked away from the man as she moved into the doorway, stepping into the hall. “I can’t do this anymore. I won’t.”

The pinch was sudden. Another needle-tip reddened. A second tube emptied into the highway of a bloodstream.

Even as her legs began to give out, she forced herself to turn around and stare into the man’s eyes, searching for some meaning. She sheltered the child in her arms as she collapsed in slow-motion against the table and onto the floor.

The man took the boy out of her arms and laid him onto the table. Vanessa’s body slid further to the floor. The man removed his white overcoat and pushed the hair out of the once-warm woman’s face. He leaned over past his knees to kiss her lips, measured and fleeting in his duration there, and then placed the coat over her body, veiling her eyes.