Jam On Toast
"Here he is! Champion of dreamland! Conqueror of nightmares! The sleepy king! How fares my weary warrior today?"
A bit of Jams dads cheek fell off and landed in the outstretched brew. The resulting stench emanating from the open wound was nothing new to Jam. Sighing he accepted the cuppa and fished out the tissue.
"Won't be much left of you soon ey pops?" He said, flicking it into an open bin.
"Oh shush with all that doom and gloom young man! The world's not all grey skies and misery!"
Jam took the window seat and found the opposite to be true.
"Oh come on Jamster, you keep frowning like that and I'll have to request a dosage increase" his father laughed. There were no forced decibels here. No nervous cracking of wise to cover the tracks of an anxious mind. Just pure, unadulterated and unapologetic joy.
"Why don't we go for a walk?"
Jam didn't want to go for a walk.
"Hike up Stoney Hill and cop some views?"
There were no views.
"See if I can't buy you a jam donut?"
Jam despised jam.
"So, what do you say son?"
His father put a plate of eggs in front of him and smiled a near toothless grin.
"I don't know dad. Maybe"
Jam's dad was likely about to reply something overly cheerful but was halted by the sound of the bell.
"Oooooh, that'll be the Doctor" He said walking towards the door.
"LUNA, TIA! DOCTOR'S HERE!"
One pair of excited footsteps hurtled down the stairs. Jam's sister, Tia, not long turned 6 and already balding, appeared at the door.
"Hi Jam! Hi Dad!" She hugged them both and took a seat at the table. "Mum said can you go fetch her? Her legs fallen off"
"Oh right, not to worry, I'll go fetch her. Jam, could you get the door? And don't forget to smile!" His dad chuckled and hurried up the stairs.
"Hello Jam! Quite the weather we're having, ey!" The Doctor stood at the door, beaming at the low hanging greys that choked the skies before turning his half lipped grin to Jam.
"Are you well young man?"
"I suppose" Jam struggled to muster the same level of enthusiasm.
"Come on chap, give us a smile! It's not all that bad is it?"
"He's not being a grump still is he?"
Jam's dad appeared at the door and clasped his shoulders.
"He most certainly is Nigel. Never mind. Shall I come in?"
"Please do! I've just had to bring Luna down. Poor doll's lost a leg"
"Poor thing" the Doc cooed. "Alas, I have something that might cheer her up!"
The Doctor produced a vial of liquid labelled Occlude and shook it. Something Jam's dad delighted in.
"Well come on come on, let's not dither the day away!"
"...asked Mr Tomas how their day was, praised the Cabinet 17 times and pledged to pick up 13 tonnes of trash by the end of the year. All of which brings your total to 300mg Tia. 30 more than last week! You keep up the hard work and soon you'll be breaking 500 easy!"
The Doctor set the syringe in Tia's arm to 500 and initiated the delivery of Occlude. Much to the excitement of Tia, who stamped her feet in joy.
Jam would be lying if he said he didn't envy his sister. It had been a while since he'd had a dose like that.
"And last but not least..." The Doctor and the others all turned their attention to Jam. Sad, smiling, concerned attention that did nothing for Jam other than make his skin crawl.
"Young Mr Jam" The Doctor grinned and looked at the phone screen in front of him. "Down to 100mg. Your latest report says you failed to hold three doors, crossed a road without looking, failed to declare your taxes, wore dirty pants for three nights in a row and I'm afraid I had to dock you some for your lack of interaction just now at the door"
"Oh honey I honestly thought you were getting back on track. What happened?" His mother's voice was slow as she smiled at him from across the room. Her entire being rejoicing in the bliss of the Occlude.
The Doctor set Jam's dial to 100 and administered the serum.
For a moment, Jam felt his pulse quicken and his eyes dilate. The grey outside the window tipped ever so briefly into blues and oranges and his skin prickled with the warmth of summer. Things felt better, on the up. The case was behind him and the blues of an enforced winter began to subside. He was Jam and he was alive, right here, right now, with loved ones and a Doctor who cared and...and...and then the curtain was down. The half life of a 100mg dose was quicker than Jam would have liked. His senses slowly drifted back to the default of winter. The blues and oranges that presented themself briefly, blended back to the oh so familiar permagrey. Looking around Jam saw his family all embracing. Their doses would keep them going well into the next day, certainly until the Doctor next returned.
More jealousy.
More gloom.
The Doctor removed the apparatus from each family member's arms, thanked them for their time and made a swift exit, stating something along the lines of another appointment. At the mention of the appointment, Jam felt a sinking in his stomach.
"Mum, what time was my appointment?"
"It's on the fridge, love" His mother removed a hand from the hugathon the three were locked in and pointed to a piece of paper on the fridge door.
"Dear Mr Jam,
We regret to inform you...lack of motor vehicle licence...resulting parking fine...despite your actual innocence...only reinstate your previous dosage...please attend at 11:45am...
Yours sincerely..."
Jam clocked the time at 11:05.
Panic.
***
Jam's fingers tapped on the cars dashboard impatiently as his mother wove the family minivan through the mass of No Dosers that had claimed the roads and pavements of the downtown area. She was still hopped up from the doctor's visit and shouldn't really have been driving with only one leg, but despite this, she seemed to be having a good time of it.
"Dancing in the moonlight" she sang. "Everybody's...oh come on Jamster! Let's have a sing a long...Ooooops" She swerved out the way of a marauding stray.
"Darn NoDos, clogging up the streets" his mother chuckled. "Don't worry pet" she patted his arm. "We won't let you end up like this"
***
"Mr Jam Pickles. You stand here today to not contest your proven innocence in the matter regarding a lack of vehicular licensing when requested to produce such documents by an official. How do you plead?" The Judge's head bopped slightly to a beat only he could hear.
Jam looked at the Jury, all of whom wore shit eating grins and glazed, slightly unfocused eyes.
None of them were paying any attention.
"I do not own a vehicle and therefore am not required to have a licence"
Some of the Jury nodded. The Judge twiddled his thumbs and chuckled.
"And the evidence for not owning a vehicle?"
"I can not produce such evidence..."
The Judge shook his head and sighed.
"Well..."
The doors opened, cutting off the Judge's verdict. A group of Doctors had appeared with bags in tow.
"Is that the time already?" the Judge slapped his hands together in glee. "Well Mr Pickles, I declare you to have dosage dropped by 200mg until you can provide evidence of...such and such" The Judge hurried through the rest of his words and rolled his sleeves.
"But I..." Jam protested. His decibels unable to pierce through the hum of excited chatter now filling the courtroom as the Jury followed suit. Each one eagerly awaiting the pierce of the Doctor's needle.
***
Blue.
If you were to ask Jam how he felt, his only reply would be blue. The Judge's ruling several weeks prior meant that not only could Jam no longer partake in the Doctor's visits, but that he was to vacate the premises entirely when he was there.
His family had been sympathetic to kicking him out. His mother cooed each time she hurried him out the door and his father went to the trouble of slipping him a cool hundo to "treat yourself for a couple hours", but there was no mistaking their eagerness for him to leave.
It was during these windows of expulsion that Jam had become accustomed to taking long walks. Doing so at first out of boredom and later out of the clarity it gave him.
Clarity, apparently, was unchartered territory for Jam. He of course knew about clarity prior to his involuntary withdrawal from Occlude. He was familiar with the premise and would go as far as to say that he had experienced clarity a multitude of times in the past. Except he hadn't. Or at least not genuine clarity.
He used to think clarity was the moment of bliss that flooded his system just as the Doctor removed his needle.
He used to think it was the state of ease that ensued and the outright certainty of the joy that came to him post injection.
He used to think it was the safety in knowing that the next dose of clarity was only a day away.
No
No
No
Clarity was a different kettle of fish altogether.
Clarity was painful. Clarity gave Jam cause for concern. Clarity raised questions, it rang alarms, induced anxiety, stoked fear. Clarity was a bitter pill to swallow. Clarity opened Jam's eyes to the everyday horrors that had become so commonplace in life - the droves of NoDo's that swamped the inner cities, the outright complacency in all matters, the fact that the PM (thanks to his ever increasing social score) was now on a permanent dose of Occlude, strapped in via drip and barely able to string sentences together let alone organise foreign and domestic affairs. Even at home, his parents, now only a pair of legs and a thumb between them, championed his sisters' continued accumulation of points and the rewards they unlocked.
No Jam found no joy in clarity at all.
"Yeeeeeow!" A voice, soft and full of hurt sounded out from beneath one of Jam's size 9s. An amorphous human, squashed in a bag amidst a sea of similar looking forms had poked its head out and scolded Jam.
"Watch it pal!"
Panic
Jam spun around to see he had ventured into the depths of downtown. All around him swarms of dull eyed drones kicked about, whimpering silently to themselves. Some made quick glances at Jam, whilst others seemed totally unawares of themselves at all. All lost. All aware.
*BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEP*
A family mini van swerved through the crowd towards Jam. Its occupiers grinning and unawares taking no notice of Jam and the bags around him.
No notice whatsoever.