The doctor prescribes MY LOVE

1. INDICATIONS AND USAGE

MY LOVE is indicated to improve the control I will have over you during your life.

I walk Hermine into the dinner club not expecting much in the way of conversation. I hope the food’s edible and that the “concert pianist,” doesn’t nod me off after a second martini.

Limitations of Use

MY LOVE is not recommended as first line therapy for those faint of heart. Prescribe MY LOVE only to those individuals for whom the potential benefits outweigh the potential risk.

Tonight, I’m going to be nice. I’ll smile and put up with the stories about the state of her divorce and her daughter’s itching attacks in parochial school.

I splurged for front row seats from an online broker.

“This place seems so beautiful. It must be a fortune to eat here.” Hermine says. It feels good knowing I’m treating her well.

The pianist walks to the front of the stage and bows before sitting in front of his shining Steinway. Hermine snickers. “He’s so short! But look how long his fingers are!”

This irritates me a bit because I know my son has long fingers, and he stopped taking piano lessons. If only I pushed him a little more, he would have continued and maybe he would be the one performing instead of this short, pretentious man in a bow tie.

2. DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

Spread a generous portion of MY LOVE over your body once daily, preferably at the same time every day. Individualize the amount of MY LOVE based on your individual needs. Dosage adjustments may be necessary.

I recognize some of the composers, but not enough of any one, and that makes me uncomfortable. I’m angry we didn’t take a program. I told Hermine to take two, but she left them in the lounge. I’m completely lost without a program.

3. CONTRAINDICATIONS

You should not use MY LOVE if you are in an unstable relationship as this could worsen your general condition. Expectations from MY LOVE may exceed its potential effect and this can lead in rare cases to life threatening disappointment.

Hermine smiles in amusement, infatuated with the performer. I see her staring at his fingers, the way he dips his hands with sharp points of the elbows, almost snapping his fingers before he swoops down on the keys.

I have a cigar cutter in my pocket, the kind they use to cut off men’s fingers in gangster movies. I’m seriously thinking about using it.

WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS:

Premature discontinuation of anyone’s love including MY LOVE, will increase the risk of refractory loneliness, insecurity and perverse anger. If you need to discontinue MY LOVE for any reason, especially a selfish one, it is highly recommended you keep a distance from loved ones, family, friends, co-workers and social contacts in general.

I ask if Hermine wants another drink but she waves me away ever so slightly—just enough to show disrespect.

Suddenly, she’s engrossed, stamping her foot to a polka rhythm. I can’t recall if this qualifies as Classical or Romanticist. It annoys me that my son knows more than I do from all that private school. He knows this composer, I’m sure of it. If I had a program I’d know too. My pressure is boiling. I can feel it.

Exposure to MY LOVE increases the risk you may ultimately kill yourself because its effects may wear off at any time, just as others may withdraw their own love for you—like the time you came home from school, found the house empty and later learned that your mother ran off with the hairdresser.

The piano music accelerates into a certain rhythm—of a tapping; the pianist’s foot on the wooden stage. Every time he taps I feel a pulsation in my head, a drill bit descending into my brain, churning my white and gray matter into a fluff of pale liquid flowing from my ears, down the sides of my chair. I feel I’m leaving myself.

MY LOVE is not expected to by dialyzable. Avoid concomitant use of MY LOVE with St. John’s Wort or until you remove the large wart from the tip of your nose, because MY LOVE won’t be effective with you looking like that.

© Richie Smith