This is your life:
1.
At the hospital, they hold support groups for schizophrenics, but you can't bring yourself to cry. None of the people in the Circle of Trust are tragic, you think, just crazy.
Mike, an under-aged Neo-Nazi with a buzz cut demands to know if you're Jewish. Mike asked you this yesterday, and the day before, but he never really believed your denial. So you say yes, because maybe Mike's not the poser punk he appears to be. You say yes because every day you toss back six tiny pink pills and can't remember what it feels like to hurt.
(It could be because you don't see Tyler any more.
When you're alone in your padded cell, and the hours are punctuated with boredom, you think about hitting yourself, to see if you're still alive. You have your suspicions that this state of apathy is actually some region of hell, and it's just that no one bothered to tell you.
But without Tyler, you don't have the balls.)
Mike's fist is sharp-knuckled; a familiar pressure in the hollow between your jaw and cheekbone.
You're dimly aware that Facilitator Barbara, a short woman whose too-tight suit emphasized the rolls of fat on her waist, calmly calls security. But that kind of thing isn't important when you're curled up in a fetal position with a guy named Mike kicking you in the stomach and screaming, Jew! Jew! Jew!
You smile, because it's so nice to see passion in a teenager these days.
Later, when security has pried Mike off of you, your psychologist asks if your masochism stems from sexual frustration. Are you a homosexual, young man?
Yes, you say. You tell the good doctor that you were really the love slave of Tyler Durden, the figment of your imagination. Tyler Durden, the distinctly male figment of your imagination.
He makes a "hm" sound, and writes something down. You visualize him jotting down "homosexual fantasies" on one side of the paper, and then adding "bread" to his groceries list.
(The dichotomy would be more amusing to you if you didn't still have insomnia.
Someone once told you that masturbation helps cure insomnia, and it isn't as if there's much else to do. They don't offer valerian root or warm milk in a nuthouse.
So on nights you can't sleep, you pull down your pants and hold your dick limply in your hand. You say to yourself, this is really Tyler's hand, though your dick is telling you it isn't.
Eventually, you bring yourself to a disappointing ejaculation and think of things to say at your next visit with the shrink.)
When the doctor asks you if you still think about Tyler, you say no. Tyler is not someone you think about—he is someone you react to.
2.
Marla visits you on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are brain parasite days. You wonder if she still goes.
They moved it to Friday, she explains.
You sit with her in the visiting room, positioned as casually as you can on a plastic chair; a cheap table distances you. If the hospital was a wax museum, you would call the pose "Man and Woman Conversing". Except for the actual exchange of words, the pair of you certainly look like you're in a conversation.
Do you want to fuck? Marla finally asks, and you turn instinctively to look for Tyler.
(Tyler likes having sex just a little bit rough. You don't remember it very well, but the nail scars on your back are testament enough.
At light's out, you try to unearth Tyler's memories. It isn't fair that he can fucking be in your head and you don't even know what his kisses are like.
You never think to ask Marla.)
As it turns out, conjugal visits aren't all that John Grisham makes it out to be. The metal table is cold against your knees, and in the corner of your eye, you can make out the red blink of the security camera.
It would almost be exciting if it weren't for the possibility that neckless guards jacked off to this kind of stuff. You're also beginning to wonder if the sticky substance you felt on the table last week was really gum.
Next week? Marla asks when she's fixing her panties.
Why not.
3.
There's a loudspeaker announcement calling for Courier, Mike.
Your last name is Courier? snorts Elena, a forty-something year old with a nervous tick in her left eye. Is that even German?
Mike grinds his teeth at the blasphemy. Did you hear? Did you hear? he hisses to some empty space to his right. She's one of them. I fucking knew it. I could tell from the first time I saw her. 'Koshev'--sounds fucking Jewish to me.
Christ, Elena says, flashing her teeth. Someone didn't take his medication today.
You think of the pink pill you skipped at lunch. You think of the flash of Tyler's shaved head that you had somehow forgotten.
Mike glares. Elena twitches.
You smile.
4.
During a lull in your multiple personality support group, you scoot next to Elena, who is now Annie, a fourteen year old con artist with a Brooklyn accent. She slips three yellow packages, trading it for the twenty dollar bill in your hand.
You have trouble sitting still because of the growing number of pink pills in your underwear. You buy sanitary pads from Elena to stop the pills from staining it pink--
(When you made your proposition, the twitching of her eye almost seems like she's winking.
Repeatedly.)
5.
It takes eleven days, sixty-six pills in your crotch, before Tyler speaks to you.
Sometime before the sun rises, you wake up to the smell of cigarette smoke. You sit up to find Tyler leaning against a padded wall, a freshly lit cigarette between his lips. He nods at you. Hey.
You're punching him before you remember getting out of bed, fist-to-jaw in some half-remembered ritual of violence. He pins you against the ground, which is ridiculously soft, saying, You're forgetting the rules.
He rolls to your side, shrugs his shirt over his shoulders, and kicks off his shoes as you push yourself off the ground. You glance at your hospital-issue gown and bare feet and narrow your eyes. It makes a slumped pile at the foot of your bed.
Your stomach is first, and when you're doubled over reflexively, he goes for your nose. He grins cockily and suddenly your knuckles reacquaint themselves with his chest, face, stomach until he's writhing underneath you on the floor.
The blood which has spilled from his nose to his chest is slippery, so you shove a kiss onto him, teeth colliding sharply into his upper lip—
His knee slams into your crotch, unleashing your cache of pink pills. Fuck this, he says. He stuffs his socks into his shoes and carries his belongings out the front door, which for some reason you thought was locked.
When security comes to take you away, you recall what pain feels like.
6.
This is your life:
The pink pills make their way into your diet.
You fuck Marla on Tuesdays.
The doctor sees you at the end of each month.
He says you're getting better.
Author's Notes: Something experimental. Too confusing? Pretty cool? Wondering why the hell I left out the quotation marks? Leave it in a review, please!