Adverse Conditions

Sarah Byrne was surprised when she woke as a 20mg Prozac pill. In the first instance, she was delighted she had lost so much weight; although she was still life-sized at 5ft 8, she weighed only 20mg. She had no legs, no arms, nothing at all that could enable movement, out of the bed, or down the stairs, to share breakfast with her parents, who were not 20mg Prozac pills at all. A pedant would have described her colouring as turquoise, but she preferred pistachio, her favourite nut. She quickly settled into her oblong state, and realised that she could do nothing but wait to be discovered.

It was the family dog who found her first; it was his habit to leap onto her bed every morning and lick her face ferociously. She welcomed the Yorkshire terrier in her usual manner of delight and disdain, until she realised that the dog was licking the coating from her, her coat to be exact, and she understood with great fright that she might dissolve. On top of that, she didn’t want to poison her dog; to hurt the family member she loved most in the world. She pushed him off the bed, and he stared at her angrily for a minute before switching to a melodious whimper.

At first, becoming a 20mg pill was a kind of freedom. She no longer had to worry about going to the toilet, her monthly period, or what she was going to do with her life, which her parents pressed her about at daily, if not hourly, intervals. The first challenge came in learning how to move, but she quickly adapted to sliding along the floor, asking her family to remove rugs and chairs wherever possible. Her older brother, who had always resented the attention she drew before becoming a tablet, was incandescent with rage about her new form. At first he confined himself to muttering that she had become even more useless than before. Then he began leaving pools of water around the house so that she might slide into them and disintegrate. She was fortunate, because the dog hated her brother and barked each time she neared a wet patch on the floor.

Indoor life did not trouble her greatly. It had always been easier to remain where things were familiar, where no one stared too long, where rain could not suddenly arrive. Sometimes she leaned out of her bedroom window and let a fine drizzle cool her coating, but the lashing Irish rain would soften her outer layer entirely. Without arms, she had no way to hold an umbrella. More troubling still was the feeling that she had been made for a purpose she refused to fulfil. Tablets were meant to disappear inside somebody else. She was meant to be swallowed.

It was not long before her family grew tired of her never changing; always the same colour, shape, small print. She left a green gastropod trail of coating along the carpets as she dragged herself up and down the hallway to her bedroom. Her father started avoiding the upstairs altogether. Her mother complained quietly about the marks on the floor while wiping them away with disinfectant. Her brother became openly theatrical in his disgust, holding his nose whenever she entered a room. Even the practical arrangements exhausted them: towels laid down after she crossed the kitchen, windows shut against stormy weather, the constant checking beneath their feet before taking a step.

By the time heavy rain was forecast one Thursday, the decision had already made itself inside the house long before anybody spoke it aloud. Her brother suggested tea in the garden. Her father carried her outside in his arms. Her mother locked the back door after them with a softness that made the sound worse. There might be sadness afterwards, they told themselves, but mostly relief.

And just as it had been the dog who first found her, it was him again who last found her, collapsed in the long summer grass, though collapse was all she was now. He licked her without hesitation, ignoring the chemical taste, the one he sometimes got after licking stone.In the kitchen, her family stood together, not knowing whether to look out or look away. They heard the crash of thunder; then the skies emptied everything they had. But by then her coat was gone entirely. She was only wet powder clumping against the earth. Between the dog’s barking and the quivering air, she disappeared completely. Her trace was negligible now, washed through a single blade of grass into the soil.

Sarah Byrne, 21st May 2026