I wake up in a daze, dressed in a straitjacket jumpsuit, trapped in a white, padded room sponsored by Vonn Industries. A doctor crouches in front of me.
“Start from the beginning,” she says.
“What beginning?” I ask.
“The beginning of you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your name is Vonn 19,” she says. “You were born in 2065, to Vonn Industries. You attended Plastic Prep, a prestigious incubator for the most talented specimens from the Fortune 5. Is any of this ringing a bell?”
“What’s a bell?”
“It’s an expression, Vonn 19, from the olden times. What I’m trying to ascertain is whether or not you remember your product development stage.”
“Who are you again? I need to get to work. I have a performance review.”
“I’m Doctor Fannie,” the doctor says. “Tell me about your work, Vonn 19. Do you remember the name of your work family company?”
“I need to tell PR I’m still in the infirmary. I have a performance review, you know. Engagement is down 3%. Leadership will be upset. But we’re a family, you know, so…”
“What’s the name of your company?” Doctor Fannie asks.
“My parent company or my work family company?”
“Either.”
“I don’t know,” I say, looking away, at the wall. “What’s it to you?”
Doctor Fanny exhales, her chin lengthening. “You were prescribed a drug called Jaz. And, according to your pharma records, you ingested around two dozen doses in a two day period. The problem is, you should have never been prescribed Jaz. According to our initial neuro reports, you don’t suffer from PSDFG, although you do exhibit some of the tell-tale symptoms, such as a low attention span and a proclivity for fixation…”
“What’s PSDFG?” I ask.
“It stands for Post-Syndrome-Deficit-Fetal-Glycosis. It’s a rare condition that’s poorly understood. Some argue that it might not even exist. Regardless, Jaz should only be prescribed for the most severe cases. Otherwise, common side-effects include nostalgia loops, otherwise known as Dejavusanscesse, and RAM episodes.”
“I’m not following, Doc,” I say, my forehead curling into a question mark.
Doctor Fanny sighs. “In laymen terms, Jaz can create an excess of memories by redistributing chemicals in the hippocampus, which is why overdose cases often feel like they’re in a perpetual state of deja-vu, overwhelmed by nostalgia.”
“Are the memories real?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said Jaz creates an excess of memories. Does that mean you’re remembering things that actually happened, or are the memories just a figment of your imagination?”
Doctor Fanny purses her lips as she nods her head. “That’s a great question, and one we don’t have an answer for yet, largely because the only studies conducted on the drug were peer-reviewed by current board members of Jaz’s Parent Company, Better Life. You ask my opinion, Jaz should have never been on the market, but then again, you didn’t ask my opinion, did you?”
“I can’t remember,” I say, and when Doctor Fanny doesn’t smile, I say, “that was a joke, Doc.”
“I see.” Dr. Fanny rises. “Well, I’ll be honest with you, Vonn 19, this is the most progress I’ve observed in you since you were admitted a couple days ago. I’m confident your mental faculties will return to normal function as long as we stay the course.”
I straighten my back. “Did you just say a couple days ago?”
“Yes, I’m certain you don’t remember, but I’ve been coming in here the past couple days, but this is the first time we’ve been able to have an extended conversation. You’ve turned a corner, Vonn 19, and I’m happy to see it.”
With great effort, I find a way to stand, despite the constraints of the straitjacket. “I need to get out of here, Doc. I have campaigns to QA. I have emails to draft!” I start trying to free myself from the straitjacket.
“Vonn 19,” Doctor Fanny says. “What company do you work for?”
“A company of rockstars!”
“And what’s the name of this company of rockstars?”
I stare blankly, agape.
“Every day,” Doctor Fanny says, “you tell me you need to work. In the early days, you were inconsolable. You lashed out. You spit on me. You needed to be constrained, hence the straitjacket, in order not to hurt yourself or others during your daily hissy fits.”
“But I’m nothing without my work!” I scream. “I'm nobody!”
“Your job will be waiting for you, if and when you recover your full mental faculties, because every company, including Bee Hive, is legally required to hold an employee’s position for six months if said employee is in the malWard.”
“But PR needs a status update every hour!”
“Don’t worry, Vonn 19, we let them know every hour about your situation. We have staff members whose sole responsibility is to liaison with companies of all kinds to inform them about the recovery progress of their depressed, anxious, burned out employees.”
“But who is going to QA the work of my direct reports? Who is going to send Zed the KPI reports? Who is going to confirm my pronouns? Have I gotten my personality report back? Am I correctly categorized within the company so as to maximize my strengths and mitigate my weaknesses? Is anybody checking my email? Confirming receipt? Unsubscribing from spam? How will I ever know if I’m worthy of likes without leadership flooding my screen with goodvibe emojis?”
Doctor Fanny is beaming.
“Why are you smiling like that?” I ask. “I’ve never seen you smile like that.”
“Because, Vonn 19, you actually know you’ve never seen me smile like this. You actually know the name of your supervisor.. You remember, Vonn.”
“Of course, I remember,” I say. “How could I forget?”
“Well, the thing about Jaz is that, once you get off it, your hippocampus takes a while to ramp back up because the neurons have stopped firing on their own. The neurons, in other words, have become dependent on the chemicals in the drug.”
“I need to get out of here,” I interrupt. “I need to talk to Yide. She told me she had a terrible day, and I haven’t even talked to her about it.”
“Yide will be here shortly.”
“How do you know?”
“She comes every day, around noon, and it’s about to be noon. I’ll send her in when she gets here. She’ll be happy to see you ramping up to baseline. As long as there are no other episodes, I don’t see any problem in letting you leave when Yide gets here, assuming she agrees to pay the discharge. She’s been paying everything else so far.” A faint smile, a bright glint in the eyes. “In the meantime, do you mind leaving a review for our malWard? I’ll send you the link. We’d love to hear about your experience, and every review helps get the word out about our services. The name of this malWard, by the way, is Mal Be Gone.”
“You want me to leave the review now? Or when I leave?”
Doctor Fanny shrugs. “Now is fine, since you have nothing else to do. You can edit the review after discharge if you like.”
“Sure,” I say. “Alright.”
Doctor Fanny pushes the review link to my mainframe, and I start synthing my review: “My experience at Mal Be Gone has been excellent so far. Doctor Fanny is very patient (no pun intended lol) and answers all of my questions…”
The door closes.
I submit my synth review.
Then I slide back down the padded wall and viddy an advertisement for a new pharma called sortOfSober while I wait for Yide to come collect me.