Off Label

a short story

Reduced to numbers when trying to communicate, she tried her best to navigate her days dealing with life, people, society. Using facial expressions, gestures, and body language, intermingled with a few numbers worked ok in person. But written communication only went so far with numbers and emojis.

Her brain didn’t forget letters or sentences, but the neurocognitive process that translated words from her brain to her mouth and hands had experienced a sudden, critical, and fatal error. And using a keyboard was no exception. Her fingers simply refused to type letters and truly unbelievable, punctuation as well. Cutting and pasting words didn’t work either. It was if her body cut itself off from this part her brain and she’d been abandoned to think and only think without the relief of expression. Reality may only be in our minds, but not being able to use words made her everyday life an excruciating game of trying not to look inept or insane.

But she had worked out a solution, though unconventional. There are 26 letters in the alphabet, so each letter does have a corresponding number. And the number zero, could represent a space between words. Of course punctuation was still a sticky unsolved issue, but given that she’d been struck dumb only last week, her solution seemed like a good one. She would’ve given herself a thumbs-up if she already wasn’t sick to death of doing this in texts, emails, and of course in person.

“Large vanilla and citrus spice cappuccino.” the barista called the order a second time. She raised her hand, remembering she’d ordered the coffee of the day. Written on the chalkboard next to the counter she could simply point, avoiding a round of charades trying to order her usual. What a joy it would be to order her double espresso with a drop of almond milk, but this for obvious reasons, was an impossibility.

Woken up from her nervous anticipation of using her newly-formed code language, she took a deep breath and said, “20 8 1 14 11 0 25 15 21”

Her first numeric thank you. Her first spoken words in a week.

The barista narrowed her eyes. “What?”

She opened her mouth to repeat her feat of communication, but remembered the ER doctor’s expression on Monday. She had done her best to explain her sudden sickness with gestures, hand signals, and text emojis. The empathetic doctor listened, nodded, and looked perplexed, but when she began to blast out number after number, the doctor looked positively alarmed.

The doctor left the curtained space and spoke to an unseen someone wearing scuffed blue crocks. “…yes, call upstairs…a psyche evaluation I think.”

Not willing to wait around for the white coat patrol, she slipped out from the ER, walked quickly passed hospital security, and ran for her car. Of course the hospital had all her information, but hopefully they’d act like the overworked, underpaid medical staff they were and would forget about her.

So, she hoped. But for the past three days, she’s skulked a little when a police car passed her on the street or cruised through her neighborhood.

She smiled and gave the barista a thumbs up.

Back in her car, she felt too frustrated to be embarrassed by her almost conversation at the coffee shop. For three years, she’s been going there and they never remembered her coffee order, or noticed that she had suddenly gone mute - as if she was a stranger, a passer-by. Why did I keep going back? Not for the charm obviously. And that damn barista needs to stop wearing electric blue eye shadow like it’s 1986 for christsake.

She smelled her coffee temped to toss it out the window. Vanilla and citrus, this better not make me puke.

Unbelievably, the coffee tasted smooth, slightly sweet, actually, delicious.

She leaned her head back and indulged herself in a moment of pity. Aah, back in the day, 8 days ago, when the alphabet, words, phrases, song lyrics, flitted off my tongue without a second guess or thought.

She reached for the pen she kept tucked under the passenger’s side visor and wrote the number 8 - the alphabetical equivalent, h. House, homework, haberdashery all began with h.

She also hadn’t been to work. A relief for once that her boss, Dorothy, HR manager at IT4U hated talking to people and preferred texting over every other form of communication. Each day she sent a sick emoji to Dorothy who sent back a sad emoji.

Friends and her remaining family a theater-addict sister and distracted with his new girlfriend father, were used to her infrequent texts and calls, so the 8 days, had passed without notice or concern.

But she needed a break. Whatever downward spiral she had inadvertently stumbled into, she needed out.

She turned on the ignition switch and drove out of the parking lot. The gas gauge flashed orange. Well, this won’t get me far.

She filled her tank and walked into the over AC’d minimart, gathered chips, a bottle of water, and circled around to pick up three double-chocolate granola bars.

Why bother?

She tossed the granola bars back in the bin and took three Snickers bars off the shelf.

The teenager manning the register was explaining again to the very loud and aggravated customer why his discount card for the Plentymart grocery store didn’t work at Gasmart’s minimart. “Yes, we are owned by the Maxmart corporation like Plentymart. But our discount cards don’t talk to each other. Ya know?” The teenager’s black t-shirt read: OFF LABEL.

She laughed to herself. Curative or killer?

“That doesn’t make sense,” the man in the green Hawaiian shirt and matching golf shorts said. “Talk to each other. I don’t need them to chat it up. Only to give me my hard earned ten percent discount.”

Propped up on the magazine rack next to the lonely newspapers and monthly magazines sat a thick and tempting U.S. road atlas.

“You can all just go to hell,” the pot-bellied Hawaiian shirt said and pushed passed the chip display. The bags quivered but remained on their carboard stand.

She placed her supplies and the road atlas on the counter.

The teenager, with aggressively orange spiked hair but a genuine smile scanned the atlas. “Cool, cool. Buying the relic. Where ya going?”

It’d been a long time, longer than just those eight wordless days that an answer to this question had eluded her. Now, it rolled off her tongue as if it had been there her entire life.

“Infinity.”