| General Fiction posted September 29, 2024 | Chapters: |
...41 42 -43- 44... 
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Depression and anxiety set in
A chapter in the book DUEL with the DEVIL
DUEL with the DEVIL - Chapter 43
by Jim Wile
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
| Background A brilliant young chemist creates a new painkilling drug with unknown benefits and pitfalls. |
Recap of Chapter 42: This chapter is from Julia’s point of view. It begins several days before the present action. She relates how suspicious she is that all is not well with Brian from her recent Skype calls with him. She can’t see him because he claims his camera is not working, and he refuses to discuss his work with any degree of seriousness.
The scene then switches to her returning home two days early after she decides to cancel her last performance. She finds Brian high, and both he and the house are in shambles. She asks him to explain, but he tells her he was planning to end the binge this evening and asks her to dump the remainder of his pills so that he will end it now. He also says he will explain everything in four hours when he has come down from his high.
She waits the four hours, all the time wondering what went wrong. She wonders if her mother has been right about Brian all along, but quickly dismisses the idea and vows to help him figure it out.
Chapter 43
Back to Brian
Julia comes downstairs again after four hours. It’s around 4:00 PM now. I’m still sitting on the couch, thinking how best to explain all of this to her. The high has largely worn off, and it’s time for the next dose of five capsules, but I had asked her to throw the remainder down the toilet for me. It was almost like Bilbo giving up his ring of power and letting it pass to Frodo. He needed a little help from Gandalf, just as I did.
She sits down beside me, takes my hand, but doesn’t say anything. She’s waiting for me to start. “Did you flush them, Jules?”
“Brian, when I left on tour, Dipraxa was working perfectly to cure your pain and not make you high. So, what turned it into a potent narcotic?”
“I guess the same thing that turned Oxy into a potent narcotic. Taking more of it.”
“Okay. You’ve explained before that part of human testing was to test higher doses for their side effects. So, is that what you did to cause the problem?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t plan on doubling the dose right away. That was an accident that happened on the day you left to go on tour.”
“How did it happen?”
“I took my usual dose of 200 mg when I woke up early with you. When I got back from the airport, I went back to sleep for a few hours, and when I woke up, by habit, I took them again, forgetting that I’d taken them three hours earlier. Within 10 minutes, I was just like I was when you came back four hours ago.”
“Oh, God. That must have shocked and devastated you that it was doing exactly what you’d designed it not to.”
“It shocked me, yes, but I can’t honestly say I felt devastated, at least then. It just felt so damn good. Jules, it was the most intense high I’d ever felt, and I loved it. It’s hard to imagine, I know, unless you experience it yourself. I guess I was too weak of a person to fight it. I didn’t want to fight it. I wanted it to never stop.”
“But you have fought it. You wanted me to flush the rest of them. You won’t make any more now, will you?”
“No. I was smart enough to predict how the rest of my life would go if I continued to make it, so I got rid of all the raw materials. I probably dumped $10,000 worth, because I know I would have just made more Dipraxa if I hadn’t. I realized that continuing to make it would not have led to a good life. I would have driven you away. Maybe I already have, and you just don’t know it yet.”
“I’m not quitting on you that easily, Babe. We’ve got an awfully long way to go before that point.”
“Jules, you’re too good to be true. You really don’t deserve a pathetic loser like me. Your mother was right about me. I’m a hopeless addict who will just drag you down.”
“Brian, please don’t ever say that again. She was dead wrong about you. In the 15 years we’ve been together, only one time before now did you ever get high from drugs, and that was after that gym accident when you were in great pain. This was an accident too. Neither time did you start out to intentionally abuse drugs. You’re too hard on yourself. You may feel like you’ve met your match and have lost, but I know better. You can fight this demon. You just need… what do you call those chemicals in the body that act as catalysts?”
“Enzymes?”
“Let me be an enzyme for you, Babe. Let me help you beat this thing. I don’t think it has a chance if we work on it together. We just need to get you straight again so you can continue your work because you’ve come so close to finding a solution to the problem with painkillers. I know that you will.”
She was so sincere and seemed so confident, but I don’t know how she could have been. I was starting to sink now. God, I needed the Dipraxa that I’d had her flush away. If she only knew of the turmoil in my mind right now as I craved that fix, she wouldn’t be so damn confident of my chances.
Three days later
As much as I insisted I do it all myself because I’d made the mess, Julia helped me clean the place up. I also cleaned myself up. I took a long shower and washed away the accumulation of grime. I couldn’t remember when I had previously showered.
I shaved off all the facial hair and got a haircut. She went with me to the grocery store, but she picked out all the food. I had no appetite. I ended up just pushing the shopping cart for her. After a while, she quit asking what I wanted to buy and just bought our usual items. We even stopped for an ice cream cone, but I didn’t order anything. I think that was a first, because normally, I love ice cream.
The three days of putting order back into our lives have finally ended, but a steady depression now permeates me. Plus, I’m in pain again. Without Dipraxa, my pain has increased to the level it was before I started experimenting on myself. Aside from this growing depression, there don’t seem to be any withdrawal symptoms such as those you might experience by going cold turkey with, say, Oxy. It’s hard to know, though, whether the depression is due to quitting Dipraxa or because of the failure of my mission. Dipraxa doesn’t seem to be physically addicting, but oh, boy is it psychologically addicting. I guess it resembles weed more in this way than opioids, which affect you both physically and mentally.
Whatever the cause of the depression I’m feeling now, be it the withdrawal from Dipraxa, my personal failure, the resumption of the pain, or all of the above, it’s beginning to overwhelm me. Our house may be back in order, but my mind is anything but. I can’t fall asleep at night. I can’t eat. As much as I missed Julia when she was gone, I have zero sexual desire for her now.
I experience bouts of anxiety in addition to these feelings of depression, and during those times, I feel a rush of adrenaline coursing through me. Although I’m eating very little, I feel like I have to empty my bowels constantly. I gag, too, for no apparent reason. And the pain in my back is at least a level 6 now, bordering on 7.
Julia makes an appointment for me with my family doctor, and luckily, she has an opening tomorrow. She will prescribe an antidepressant medication, and I will take it. I know how these pills work. They will help prevent the destruction of the natural mood enhancer known as serotonin, which is further depleted by the depressed state, and, hopefully, this will restore me to a normal state. They work for most people. Let’s hope I’m one of them.
It takes a very strong, determined partner to help see you through clinical depression. I am taxing Julia’s patience and fortitude to the limit. Aside from the demon that is addiction, depression is perhaps even worse. It’s like you’ve got this devil sitting on your shoulder, whispering in your ear, constantly telling you how worthless you are. Not only does he dredge up every failure you’ve experienced in your life, but he also diminishes or negates every triumph. You can try to argue with him, but he always prevails.
In great detail, I relive the embarrassing episodes I had while wooing my young teenage crush, Sandi—how I’d tried to humiliate or provoke her boyfriends like Josh Bennett and that kid at Don Robbins’s party, who I pushed into the pool. That ill-fated car accident when I went rushing out of there, which was the beginning of all my troubles with pain and addiction. The way I caused my cat Chloe to die, which led to my first overdose. The dumb weight-lifting accident in my freshman year of college, which led to my second overdose.
Every one of these, I continue to dredge up and beat myself over the head with, and I seem powerless to stop it with that infernal voice whispering in my ear, telling me over and over how worthless I am. It tells me I don’t deserve a spouse like Julia, and it’s right about that.
How can she possibly remain with someone like me? She is so talented and wonderful and beautiful. She could have any man she wants, and yet she settles for me? What’s wrong with her? I know what’s wrong with me. I’m a total fuckup, a loser, and that’s the way it’s always going to be.
(4 more chapters to go)
Book of the Month contest entry
 Recognized |
Brian Kendrick: The narrator of the story. At the beginning of the story, he is 12 years old and in 6th grade in Kernersville, North Carolina. The story traces his life into his 30s.
Julia Kendrick: Brian's wife whom he met at rehab when they were 16. She becomes a premier violinist.
Francine (Fran) Kendrick: Brian's older sister. She is 18 at the beginning of the story and goes to junior college, where she studies law enforcement.
Rafael Ortiz (Raffi): Youth therapy group leader at the rehab facility.
Robert Entwistle: Julia's father.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother.
Mike Pekarsky: Fran's boyfriend who she met on her Caribbean cruise.
Daniel Molebatsi: Brian's undergrad college roommate. He is from Botswana and is a business major.
Dr. Paul Rieke: Brian's organic chemistry professor.
Kimiko Yamada (Kimi): Brian's organic chemistry lab partner. She is from Japan and also resides in his and Daniel's dorm.
Willy Stubblefield: The leader of the Clark Creek Drifters bluegrass band that Julia joins.
Shannon Stubblefield: Willy's wife and the drummer of the Clark Creek Drifters.
Illustration courtesy of Flux-Pro
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