This is What She Wants More Than Anything - Camilla Basham

Jack Kerouac got all jacked up on it and wrote “On The Road” in one long rambling paragraph in a three-week kick ass session. The fucking Nazis took it when they were jumping out of planes behind enemy lines in route to their next murdeours rampage. Ginsburg wrote about it. John-Paul Sartre was devoted to it.

Alice’s depressed aunt had her Prozac, her worrying mom had her Valium, her pumped up brother had his steroids. Her over achieving, prophetic, creative beast of a best friend walks in the path of Kerouac, Sartre, Ginsburg and the Nazis, and had her Adderall: today’s creative rampaging amphetamine.

As for Alice, what she really wanted more than anything was to believe that diarrhea, dizziness, dry mouth and a decrease in sexually desire were not necessary for her to find her true self. But, what if she’s wrong?

She casts alternate blank stares between the computer screen and the little brown bottle that arrived in her post office box this morning hidden in the heel of a shoe inside of a shoe box; the return label from some remote Indian village.

Had she really resorted to ordering medication from online foreign pharmacies? She must have, there it was, staring back at her. Her fingers moved from the keyboard to the bottle, fingering it and tapping it. She read the label a dozen times. Dr. Patel. And there was her name. And in her peripheral vision was the computer screen: empty, white, and waiting. Were they in on this together - the screen and the pills? If so she was out numbered.

The phone rang. Her best friend was speaking: anxious, fast, breathless, “…ok, gotta go, love you.” and then click. What came before was the news that she landed a book deal: she and the Adderall. “Fuck it.” thought Alice. She swept the bottle up with her hand and ran the water from the tap.

The very thing that helped these notable people achieve their notoriety was also the thing that helped bring upon their end. Well, at least they ended up in Wikipedia, she thought to herself.