The Due Process Pill

By Michael Crowley

In a future thinking twist, David Coulter is under suspicion and coerced into entering a chemical detention process to assess his guilt. How the Pill affects him over the next two nights forces a reevaluation of himself and the world he thought he lived in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Crowley
• Release date: Oct 6, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465780348

Michael Crowley

Michael Crowley was born Feb. 26th, 1948 (100th anniversary of The Communist Manifesto) in Cardiff, Wales. He began studying Buddhism with a Tibetan lama in 1966, becoming an upasaka of the Kagyud lineage in 1970. In order to augment his Buddhist studies, he acquainted himself with Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Mandarin Chinese. Mike has lectured at the Museum of Asia and the Pacific, Warsaw, the Jagellonian University, Cracow, The California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work has been published in Fortean Times, Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness, and Culture, Psychedelic American, and Psychedelic Press UK. In January 2016, Mike received the R. Gordon Wasson Award for outstanding contributions to the field of entheobotany. He currently serves on the advisory board of The Psychedelic Sangha, a group of psychedelically-inclined Buddhists, based in New York. He is based in Northern California.

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The Due Process Pill

Michael W. Crowley

Copyright 2009 Michael W. Crowley

Smashwords Edition

Published by Smashwords

Front cover image is derived from Wikimedia Commons file Quercus_robur.jpg (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quercus_robur.jpg#file), by MPF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MPF) and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License explained at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

These things only happen to other people.

"Yeah mom. No, I'm fine,...

...I know, yeah. I never get sick, but this is some kind of flu,...

...yeah, probably just a twenty-four hour thing, you know...

...No, work is fine. What? No, I'm not seeing anyone new. No, yeah, I know.

I love you mom... Huh? Why does anything have to be wrong for me to say I love you? You always complain that I never say it back when you say you love me. Maybe I'm old enough to say it first now.

Well it's true, I'm getting old mom. I love you too...

...Yeah, no. I already talked to dad. Thanks, yeah.

No, I haven't heard from Dan since his birthday, but I'm sure he's doing all right. Ok, ok, I love you too mom.

Yes, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, ok. Ok. Goodbye mom," I said.

I ran my fingers through my hair and closed my eyes for a second. That was done. Now I could relax, stop trying to fight it, and just let go.

I had to tell her everything was all right. I closed the phone and looked at it like I held a strange object that had fallen from the sky. Everything was strange now, rich with new meaning. Whether this was the end or the beginning, it had all changed, and would never be the same. I was spent, and sick of fighting it. I was losing my grip, hanging on for the courage, trying to gather the will to let go, and just be ok with the ending. Letting go had to be my decision. I wasn't going to be beaten. Whatever happened after I let go was supposed to happen.

I thought about that for a minute. No, that fateful supposed to happen stuff was bullshit. But whatever happened, I would accept. I set the phone on the bench next to me and inhaled. The air just tasted good, it felt good to breathe. I inhaled again and could feel the oxygen surging in my blood. I was too exhausted to feel anything but what was right here. But as my blood surged, so did a haunting ambivalence over the thoughts inside me. Yes it was different, and yes, it would never be the same. I looked at the trees in front of me like this was the only moment in my lifetime. I saw myself as well.

Then I picked up the phone again and turned it off. I needed to finally sort out what had happened. I said everything was all right, but she knew. I said everything I wanted to say, everything she needed to hear to be ok. She's mom and I have to look out for her. She had no idea what was wrong, never did know exactly what was wrong, but she knew when it wasn't right.

I watched the wind in the trees, waiting for the first leaf to fall out. A memory floated up of a kid, who was me. The memory replayed itself. I was laying in a pile of leaves, watching one fall all the way down. It took forever to fall, and was the only thing in the world as it came down. Reaching up to catch it, the sun was in my eyes. I couldn't see, and then it landed in my fingers. I held it over my eyes to block the sun and the veins were like real branches. I spun it around to read both sides of the oak leaf. It was like reading God's blueprint for the tree, I think that's when I realized I wanted to be a maker of things. I wanted to design how they would be. I didn't know what an architect was, but I felt like I could make the forms that become real things. Look where I am now.

Now, there were no leaves falling, they were too green. But it was getting colder at night. I watched a squirrel searching for acorns. When we were kids, we shot them out of bird feeders with a Crossman. My brother Dan and I would keep count to see who was the best shot. We were protecting the feeders to keep the birds from starving. I cringe at the stupid irony now, because we were killing the squirrels to save the birds. It was our mission. Tracing back to those memories and further back again, it was like I could just step off the bench and back into ten years old. I remember what it was like to pull myself up into a tree without feeling my shoulder pop. What's that saying about your life flashing before your eyes. Maybe you are just trying to hang on, trying to remember it all before it's gone. But I wasn't hanging on anymore. I had looked at everything I could remember. All of those memories were just there all at once spread out like a tablecloth instead of leaves in a book.

And then, I saw what happened.

I died a little, but for the first time since forever, I was right here in my own skin. I was not on the way to someplace. I was sitting here on a park bench, somehow completely ok that the story had an ending. The most horrible thing in my life had happened, and the worst of it I had only witnessed like I was watching television. It was not real at first. And then it was more real than I ever wanted it to be. Some illusion had broken, but there was nothing I could do to bring the illusion back, or change the past. I don't know why, but right now on this bench I didn't feel the weight of it anymore. The ordeal was not a penance, but if forced me to see things as they are. The sadness was real. It was the most real thing I had ever felt. As I finally and completely let go, I could feel the release of emotions wash over me. It was hard to breathe. I had to force myself to suck in air. Maybe it was really wearing off, or maybe it was sinking in. I couldn't tell. But it was over, this was an ending that would free me.

I had come so far. Just last night I was thinking, if God's designs were so great, just how did this get so completely screwed up. I had my life, my career, all planned out. Things like this only happened to other people.

There are moments in some people's lives when things have gotten so broken and screwed up that it is going to be the end of the world if a miracle doesn't happen, and that's when you start making phone calls because you feel like you will drown if someone doesn't throw you a rope.

If you are lucky, you get saved by an old friend, or a dirty lawyer, or some forgotten advice. If not, you realize there's no one at all, and you just start swimming, waiting for a shore that may never appear. That's when the world gets really honest with how indifferent it is to any one of us, and all you have is all you have ever really had, and it has been right in front of you all along.

Sitting on a park bench listening to the leaves in the wind with the rising sun on my face, and thinking good God, this world is so beautiful, and I never noticed, until I met her.

It started two nights ago right after work. I found a parking spot, grabbed the bag of Chinese food next to me, got out of the car and started walking to my door. I got my keys out, looked up, and there they were, two guys on my steps wearing suits. They looked like they had played college ball. When one of them turned to look at me there was a smaller guy in between knocking on my door. He turned to see me step up.

Can I help you guys, I said.

Mr. Coulter? the small man addressed me.

Call me Dave, I said putting my hand out.

He didn't shake my hand, instead he pulled out his wallet. So I said, well then, maybe I should ask who you are...... trailing off when I saw a badge. This guy did not look like a cop, or any kind of guy who would be holding a badge. The other two looked like they could be guarding the President, but this guy, looked like he was working for someone like the President, officious and expectant.

That's not necessary Mr. Coulter, I am Donald Paglia, these gentlemen are Deputy U.S. Marshals Ellis and Driehaus. Mr. Paglia showed the name on his identification and the two Marshals showed their badges

Well then, uh, gentlemen let me rephrase that. What can I do for you, I said.

We'd like to ask you some questions, may we come in, he said.

I don't know about that. You want to tell me what this is about. I had been audited by the I.R.S. last year and it cost me a couple thousand for a tax attorney just to send a