Writing Prompt

Please, kind sir, take this pamphlet. You see it tells the truth, it’s main feature! You cringe, walk away, why do you withdraw?

The employee handed me the pamphlet Explaining the hot new feature I must buy I must buy Without the new Fruity gadget I’ll go into tech withdrawal

I have quite often thought that advertising via pamphlet drops through the letter box were a complete waste of time, money and trees until I picked up the bundle of post this morning. I hastily separated the wheat from the chaff and was about to throw the latter in the bin when an image caught my eye and my breath was held back as a failed to exhale.

The pamphlet was in the form of a newspaper but A4 size and on the front page was a familiar face. It was a photograph of my daughter Lucie from about a year ago and she was looking radiant, wearing her hair down, with a red colour running through it but the tips were left blonde. It was not the fact she was in this pamphlet that stopped me in my tracks but what I saw on closer inspection. Lucie was holding a syringe against her inner elbow joint, her eyes were rolled back slightly, she was drooling a little from the left side of her mouth and she looked at peace.

How I had initially thought she looked radiant is absolutely beyond me because the image was horrific. My little girl was shooting drugs into her vein. My little girl was on the front page of this brochure as a feature and I was utterly shocked to the core.

With shaking hands I dropped all the post with the exception of the pamphlet and with trepidation, I started reading the article Lucie was featured in. How could this be? What the hell is she doing? Where is she right now?

Questions flew through my mind but the answers were right there in front of me. Unbeknownst to me, Lucie was an addict and she was now being featured in the promotional material for a new drug and alcohol withdrawal service! New questions. How did I not know? Why would she not come to me? What the hell?!

I am broken. My heart is broken. My beautiful little girl is broken.

The news was dull today. The front page feature was yet another drab celebrity gossip piece. The words blurred where the never ending rain had beaten the print over the cold winter night. My hand shook a little. I don’t know why, I was used to being cold. Being cold was all I knew, this time of year. A gloved hand suddenly appeared in front of my face as I sat tucked into a shopfront doorway. A sky blue pamphlet firmly held between the folds of black leather. An ornate gold cross almost glowed in the center of the page. Reluctantly, I looked up at the man, who looked down a long crooked nose back at me. Looking down in the figurative sense, not just the literal. I could see the same expression in his eyes that I saw in all the others. A sort of glazed expression that looks but doesn’t really see.

Nobody wants to see what I really show them. Nobody wants to see the reality. They’re usually too embarrassed or too marred by pity to look for too long anyway. Who would want to look too closely at the scars that weave intricate patterns across every inch of my skin? Or the blinding absence of so many of my limbs? No one wants to look at the man who served his country for countless years and was broken and reduced to ashes in the process.

I straightened up my beret. The one remnant of my past I still held on to; snatched the sickly blue and gold pamphlet from from his hand, screwed it up with the four fingers I had left and tossed it onto the soaked concrete tiles where it belonged.

I had once been a man of faith. But how can one have faith in a being of almighty power and omniscience that leaves his creations to suffer like this. I’d stripped the faith from my mind and heart a long time ago. No part of it lingered in me and I cursed the very thought of it. I didn’t miss it, nor did any part of me feel any kind of withdrawal from any part of the ridiculous fantasy.

The man shot me a look of mild offense, pulled his collar up against the wind and shuffled away. Good. I went back to the comfort of minding my own business.

The rheumatologist interrupted me as I tried, for the fifth time, to ask him a question.

“Show the photographs of your physical symptoms to this medical student here.”

Okay. Great. Now I’ve forgotten my question.

“These symptoms are common features with SLE.” He muttered to his student, who was nodding and smiling at my phone screen as though he had no idea what was going on.

And with that, it was over. My withdrawal from his office was less than consensual. He had his hand on my shoulder, forcing me through the door as I tried once more to ask him a question. This was my first appointment after all, I had no idea if what I was experiencing was normal. But of course, doctors are busy people, and because he’d sent me some pamphlet in the post, apparently I should be fully informed.

That’s how I felt as I walked through the bustling hospital corridors.

I can’t remember what prompted me into going these things. It’s not like alcohol was really ruining my life. I have a good job, a nice place, reasonable friends—I just liked having a shot in the afternoon. Or a few in the morning to substitute the Java. Or a couple before bed to shake the insomnia. But it wasn’t a real problem. No, I’d consider a real problem to be the current state of our economy rather than the current state of my sobriety. I sit in this chair, pamphlet in hand, wanting to do nothing else but walk out. I didn’t need to be here. I didn’t even have a DUI. The guest speaker goes on and on about the “steps”. Somehow God is mentioned. The clock clicks behind me as my withdrawal-induced migraine sets in. I don’t need to be here. I look down at the piece of paper where a poorly edited stock photo of a supposedly sober woman smiles back at me. Her bright features mock me to believe that I should be trying to better myself. Was my life not fine before? It didn’t make sense for my being here.

The exhausted performer Looked at the crumpled pamphlet Finally realizing what it was featuring There was a lady or maybe a really thin man that looked like a lady Standing behind a mirror? A curtain? Who knows? With a sigh the performer crumpled the pamphlet into a ball and flicked it out of his mind His head was pounding The withdrawal of the six bottles of beer was finally starting to kick in He hated this part of drinking But secretly, he also loved that he was able to feel something again