Dearest Hope,

I have failed you.

Your Jailor

Painkillers of War

What patriotism emanates from the refulgent red, white, and blue of my six tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol, trapped in their bottle, trapped in my backpack? Should the red––only a couple of shades shy of hot pink––inspire mass bravery? Should the white––whiter than any floor I have stepped on, whiter than any plate I have eaten from––inspire innocence. Should the blue––brighter than any sky I have stepped under, brighter than any water I have stepped in––inspire justice? Should they somehow muster their self-patriotism, as they were unable to in their upbringing at their home factory, to overcome the blockades barring bravery from innocence, innocence from justice, and justice from bravery? To escape this desolate, treasonous triptych of individual prisons? For dormant within those…those façades of bravery, innocence, and justice, lie 3000 Acetaminophen painkillers of war. The Acetaminophen sluggishly crawl around their prison, which is almost perfectly round but lavishes in the imperfection of the protruding band wrapping around its length. The Acetaminophen prowls for any sign of Hope digging a stomach-acid escape hole. They signed a pact signed not by blood but by shards of shredded patriotism to their designed duty. They promised Hope that they would kill any pain for Her, and Hope merely promised them she would come. To each other, they preach, She will come. She will come.

         But what does all that refulgent red, white, and blue matter when those 6 tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol, mites on my palm, and those 3000 Acetaminophen trapped within them, are all trapped in their own prison? Atop them stretches a cap whiter than even the Tylenol white and around them spans a shell tainted the toxic orange of a sunset desperately reeling back its last refulgent rays on a world long-since poisoned to death––an orange color of crusty iron-contaminated clay and rust and rot and everything but succulent juice-exploding oranges tangy with the radiant summer sunlight. Because who can eat oranges when on the inside pain gorges on every nerve, vein, artery, and bone. The sun appears to retreat into unadulterated black and then resurge, as if languidly offering the tablets exiguous scraps of hope and then just as languidly, dragging those scraps back. A cruel taunt, a crude isotope of Hope, callous and primitive in its impersonation of Her. Yet as the tablets watch the toxic orange painfully wither into unadulterated black, and as the Acetaminophen inside feel the warmth of the sunset’s refulgent rays drain out of their prison, that isotope begins to stabilize into reality, and all now whisper, When will Hope come? Will She come?

Suddenly, from high up in this poisoned to near-death world, an escape hole appears. The white whiter than Tylenol white is flung away and the 6 tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol rattle against their prison in anticipation for their release: Is Hope here? Has she come? Are we saved?

And I used to obsess over that She promised me She would kill my pain like Tylenol and Advil and aspirin had not.

         Hope does not appear. But the tablets cheer anyway for glorious, delectable freedom and roll and rattle their way to the escape hole. Yet 4 tablets are not let past. The cap swings in front of their faces as quickly as it fell away. The 2 tablets set free leap with blind joy into the unknown, their red, white, and blue now glimmering in the truth of their radiance. As they drop into the free darkness, they see a silhouette radiating a dimming red, white, and blue iridescence, piercing the darkness with a single, thin light. And suddenly, they grasp the vastness of the darkness. It is never-ending, blacker than the withering sunset could ever be. And the darkness crackles, like lightning ready to vaporize its closest victim. And the tablets tremble and the Acetaminophen crumple to the frozen floors of their prisons, the uncontrollable shivers of their bodies shaking the bars more than their previous rattling ever had. The darkness is all-consuming. Except…that one red, white, and blue light.

Hope?

But the tablets fall into the darkness too soon. Still trapped, the 4 tablets –– clitter clattering at the top of their lungs for justice against this force that has stopped them, this enemy of Hope –– soon hear what seems like the tablets’ faint screams, tinged with the vibrating joy of the 1000. This cannot be an enemy of Hope who snatches freedom from our grasp! they think. The cap must be keeping us separate to savor freedom individually, and the cap must be controlled by Hope herself! She has been here all along!

No, my…friends.

She has been there all along…

Yes.

But not as the controller.

And you are not walking into freedom.

For both these facts––

I am truly

sorry.

They cheer and cavort and crash into each other in uncontrollable anticipation for their release. Soon 2 more and their 1000 more escape into the unknown. The cap closes. Later, the last 2 and their 1000 finally escape into the Bliss. As these last 2 take the final leap, they witness Her with Her dimly glowing hand outstretched, closing the whiter-than-white cap. And Her other hand is stuck to the shell of the orange prison. They witness the…toxic?...orange slipping from Her fingers, trailing down to the center of Her palm and seeping into the prison’s shell. They witness Her desperate attempts to pull away, the miniscule freedom Her palm enjoys from its enslavement to the prison, the slight change in the prison’s color from toxic orange to adulterated black as she pulls away and the resurgence of the toxic orange to the unadulterated black shell when her hand presses back against the prison.

Not you too, Hope?

And as they fall into the dark they feel within them the scream of death that resounded from mouth to ear to eardrum to mind and back to the screams of the first 2 tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol, the screams of the first 1000 Acetaminophen, the joyful screams of basking in freedom they had imagined that were in cruel reality death-screams that clawed through their withering hearts of bravery, innocence, justice, and patriotism.

This entire escape from the sunset to freedom was false, like the Hope to whom they had given their faith. She was simply another painkiller trapped in a continuous, impossible war, like them in their toxic orange prison, like the Acetaminophen between their blockades of false red, white, and blue. Those 6 tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol still sit in their pill bottle tainted with the toxic orange of a sunset reeling back its last refulgent rays on a world poisoned to near-death. The prison still sits in a little pocket in my backpack, the prison of a prison of a prison, all holding wrongly convicted painkillers of war. It is true, at least in my ears, that Self-Punishment can almost be heard crackling violently around the bottle, indeed vaporizing any attempt to breach its swarm and reach the prison. And yet, with every step I take as I walk to class, to lunch, to home, the prisons churn and Hope dangles from her palm stuck to the toxic orange prison fighting for her life and the lives of the 6 tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol who rattle against each other in perked excitement and the 3000 milligrams of acetaminophen crawling within their barely warm blockades, who all cry at the top of their nonexistent lungs: Is Hope really there? Has she come to save us?

After 6 months and 25 days, I hear you all.

Dear the 6 red, white, and blue tablets of Extra Strength Tylenol and the 3000 mg of Acetaminophen within,

         Hope has always been there, battering Self-Punishment from within with countless armies of bravery, innocence, and justice. She sacrificed many of your comrades-in-arms to fend off my pain when all I did was cling onto her like the helpless runt of a mother’s newborn babes. And when the sunset would finally reel back its last refulgent rays on the world poisoned to death, Hope would suffuse it with more life-preserving––not toxic––orange, creating tomorrow’s battlefield for tomorrow’s armies. Supply her with your faith, and you will escape one day. Perhaps not into the Bliss you seek, but away from the prison of Self-Punishment that weaponizes your own rattle against yourself with every step. Have faith. I give you my deepest appreciation for your dedication to obtaining Justice, Blue, to preserving innocence, White, and to imbuing all with bravery, Red.

Dear Hope,

         I beseech you Hope––accept these apologies I clawed from my heart, like those death-screams that clawed through your soldiers’ hearts when you threw them into the front lines of my war. I heard your rattling, and yet…I did nothing. Inaction on my part has created greater suffering to all than I ever experienced with my first injury.

I promise to shatter Self-Punishment with my own bravery, innocence, and justice, to fuel my own last refulgent rays, to break free from my prisons. Rest, Hope. You and your troops––ex-painkillers-of-war––have created my tomorrow. I shall not abandon my future again.

Your Ex-Jailor,

Soldier of Hope