Untitled — “Two Milligrams of Clonazepam”

Translated from the Persian original.

Two milligrams of clonazepam (benzodiazepine)

One milligram of lorazepam (benzodiazepine)

Ten milligrams of zolpidem (non-benzodiazepine)

It's past four in the morning now, and there's no sign of sleep, nor of inspiration, of some idea descending so I can write something. If you ask me, anyone who'd taken these should either wake up very late tomorrow or not wake up at all. Well, you must be thinking I have a drug-abuse problem. No, believe me, I took them in perfectly good faith, at long intervals, and because they weren't working. But you might also think I get some special pleasure out of taking these opiates. No, believe me, when the dose of these drugs goes up, you stop caring not just about life and striving, but even about death and passivity. Now I want to let you in on a secret. Once upon a time I was in love with a fifty-kilo girl, and things didn't go well, in such a way that we were together but, well, we had no use for each other anymore, and from one day on we never saw each other again. Well, it's very hard when, after nearly three years, a fifty-kilo pill suddenly vanishes from your double bed. Contrary to my artsy appearance, I'm a busy man; I don't sleep till noon, and I had professional and legal obligations to my clients and customers, and I really couldn't spend my time crying behind the wheel in the rain, or going to the door of the beloved who'd cut me off and talking her into coming back, or even searching for someone better than her to supply my dopamine and phenylethylamine. I went to the doctor; he gave me pills and said go see a counselor. The first day I went to the counselor, he asked me questions for an hour, messed with me, and jotted some things down. I took the pills and felt worse every day, so much so that I suspected he'd mistakenly prescribed me pills for a late period. Anyway, the week passed, and fed up, I went to my second appointment with the counselor to talk for another hour. He asked what's new, what I'd done, how things had gone. I said nothing, I've kept myself busy, I think less, and I take the pills regularly for sleep. He asked a question and I felt I'd already given him the answer, and then another question that made me sure he had no idea about me, or the past week, or my emotional problem. On my way out, I didn't book next week's appointment with the secretary. What remained were the pills, which regulated my sleep and knocked out my memory, so that, never mind love, of the other emotions too I only understood the part that had to do with the stomach and intestines. To get on with my life, I took these pills, up to three a day. Time passed and I calmed down. I felt that even if I hadn't taken the pills, love has its own clockwork: if there's no one to wind it, it's still there, but it doesn't ring. But whatever it was, I ran that period of my life on these very pills, and my pain didn't spread from loneliness to professional failure and so on. But now it was time to quit the pink pills. I cut three to two, two to one, one to half. Until one night there was half a pill left in the blister pack, and I took it and went to sleep, and made a deal with myself not to buy any more. The next night came, and I knew perfectly well I could sleep without pills, but just like tonight, I tossed and turned in bed for hours. Toward morning I couldn't take it anymore and went to the nearest all-night pharmacy, got the pills, came home and got into bed. I was about to open them when an idea came to me. I put the pill on the pillow next to me and the two of us slept together. Since that night I've cut my fifty-kilo bedmate down to fifty milligrams. Their behavior was very much alike: both slept quietly, both were a source of calm, and I made no use of either; all that mattered was that they were in bed next to me, so I'd know I could sleep.

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