This is a fragment is part of an overall quest to practice writing fiction. The prompt is s comes from the Solar Punk Prompts podcast, episode S02E04 – The Pharmacists.

The Pharmacists

A Medley of Glass

I hate it when two glass bottles rub against each other. My toes curl at the sound. It makes me want to swallow my own tongue. I could avoid this sound forever, were it not for the dozens glass utensils that I wash and dry every day, at the back of the pharmacy.

Each morning, I fog up the back room with the steam rising out of tall soup pots. Inside, then hot water rolls and rumbles, disinfecting vials. To the right, on the counter, two dozen bottles line up to be scrubbed. I wriggle the coiled metallic cleaner inside. The rough bristles scrape and smear sediment.

You might think this is unbearable. You might pity me. There's no need for that. Glass clinking against glass, bristles scraping against a tall bottle wall, all this is bearable. Pleasant, even. Sometimes, the sounds link together in fleeting harmony.

I'm done well before my parents walk in the front door. Clean bottles and clean vials look up at me, as if expecting a piece of validation. They know they're in for a day of being clinked and clanked, filled and dumped, shaken and swirled. Better them than us.

It's only at this point that the torture starts. I pick up four bottles, two in each hand.

I can't explain what it feels like, expect by comparison.

It's worse than salt water getting into your eyes.

It's worse than walking all day in soaking-wet boots.

Worse than drinking curdled milk.

Try holding two bottles in one hand. You may think "it's not so bad", and then glass touches glass. The friction stops my heart in place.

Melancholia

You're never in a rush. And I don't want to rush you.

Watching you carry two bottles in each hand, with a rag between them, stretches my patience. You set the bottles in front of me, and the cloth slips away. The bottles touch. The look in your eyes? I can only describe it as getting you tooth pulled out without anesthetic.

There are worse things out there, my son. You work long hours. You copy labels by hand. You even draw blood without flinching. Only those damn bottles can get you worked up.

Every day, this pharmacy tempts fate. It's barely hygienic. Barely stocked up. You don't know it, but thetanos would have eaten you alive, were it not for the vaccines. You weren't around to know how good we used to have it. Nobody in my family ever boiled a vial. The sterilizing robot chirped like a swallow in spring while it disinfected all our tools.

You never chose to become a pharmacist. We never talked about becoming, in this family. As long as this brutish building stands, we make sure there's someone inside. To soothe pain, to put people back together. To bare witness to the wails and sobs.

In winter, you hear a litany of amputations. You're huddled on the staircase above the operating room, towels and fresh water at hand. Alcohol. Gauze. Needles. Suture thread. You're never in a rush. And I don't want to rush you.

There are worse sounds in this world that two bottles, rubbing against each other.