Comform

Take the pill they said.

Everyone’s doing it they said.

It will make you smarter, faster, stronger, and more attractive to the opposite sex they said.

All the cool kids are doing it they said.

Conform they said.

The problem being I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to take the pill. Not in the slightest. Not one bit. The peer pressure to take it grew day by day. I would have liked to say the pill didn’t work but it mostly did. The people who took it did indeed get slightly smarter, faster, and stronger. I wasn’t so sure on the part about being more attractive to the opposite sex but considering the other four claims were true it was safe to assume that was true too.

I didn’t feel at a disadvantage for not taking it but I didn’t feel any advantages for the same reasons. I guess though that it would be hard to know what I felt like taking it as I had yet to.

I did however feel special for not taking it. In a world where 99% of the population is on the same super drug, the ones who don’t take it are probably the super ones for different reasons than the drug provides. The thing was, years ago, when I was old enough to start taking it, I almost did. Then something happened that changed my perceptive radically.

I remember sitting in the doctor’s office at the age of 12, being offered the pill. The doctor was a nice enough man, that was to say I didn’t have any issues with him. My mom at my side, he happily told me I was eligible for DMY121 or otherwise known as the enhancement pill. He started to tell me all the benefits and then proceeded to tell me there was a very rare percent (.0001%) of the population who experienced mild to severe side effects.

I remember being handed a sample trial package, with enough pills for two weeks, to get me started. That was the first and last time I had ever held the pill. At the time it was a medium sized white capsule and you had to take it twice a day. The trial pack held 28 pills.

I know I just starred at them for a long while durning which the doctor and my mom talked about all the benefits of the pill. They expected me to start taking it then and there. I can’t quite put my finger on why I decided not to take the pill at the time, only that it felt right. The doctor and my mother were both shocked, horrified, and then worried at my dismissal over the wonder drug.

After all, if there was a wonder drug that made you smarter, faster, and stronger with almost no side effects, why not take it?

When it came down to it, my reason for not taking the drug was three-fold. First off, for as lame as it sounded, I didn’t want to take a pill daily that I didn’t need. About two weeks after starting to take the drug you have to take it once a day for life. Stopping taking it was highly likely to cause permeant damage. There was no weeding yourself off the drug, you were either on it or you were not.

The second reason a little more complicated. It wasn’t the money, although the weekly cost of the pill was fairly high, and it wasn’t the hassle of having to take a pill twice a day at a fairly set time. No, it was the fact that I was afraid by taking it I would lose myself. I would lose what made me me. Yes everyone on the pill would tell me that that wasn’t the case but how would they know? For the better part of their lives they had all been taking the pill. How would they know who they were without it? They wouldn’t. The pill had become just as much a part of them as everything else.

It’s not to say I have a thing against taking medicine. I don’t. If I need to take medicine I will. I just don’t believe in taking medicine (or surgery) that is uanessacry. I like who I am. Why change it?

The third reason, however, was way more complicated than the rest.

The third and final reason that I didn’t want to take the pill was family related. A slight portion of the population become addicted to the pill. Not in the way you have to take it or you’ll suffer permanent side effects, but more in a nicotine addiction kind of way. Taking the pill more than the once a day was more dangerous than taking it for two weeks and stopping. Those who had taken for more than two weeks and were addicted to it were rare but a huge danger to their selfs.

A few members of my extended family became addicted to the pill, over dosed, and were pronounced legally brain dead shortly after. While it was never proven that addiction to the pill runs in the family I didn’t want to risk it. I didn’t want to have to take something once a day that I was addicted to in order to not suffer side effects from not taking it.

Maybe I would be slightly better off taking the pill. Maybe I would be smarter. Maybe I would be faster. Maybe I would stronger. Maybe I would be more attractive to the opposite sex but the thing was maybe I would also become addicted and brain dead. The negatives, to me, out weighted the positives.