Cure All

The brass key dangling from her neck was worn and tarnished from her constant caress. Worthless in appearance, its value was greater to her than any riches. It wasn’t wealth the key provided; it was power. Power over the weak, power over the sick, power over those whose trust was placed firmly at her feet. Trust that was trampled casually, like an elephant squashing an ant.

As the Head Nurse at Twin Lakes Mental Health Institution, Morgana Wicker was in charge of keeping inventory and providing medicine meant to help her patients. An inventory sheet with the signature of Head Nurse Morgana Wicker scrawled across the bottom was riddled with lies.

Nurse Wicker had done her research on the penzentamine being prescribed to the patients. It was the new cure-all drug, prescribed to patients suffering from complete psychotic breaks to anxiety. It rewired the brain into “normality.” With the correct dose, it should cure these ailments, or at the very least, lead these patients on the right path. However, at a certain lower dose, Nurse Wicker discovered it left patients worse, almost brain dead.

“These low-life people will never provide for society. They don’t deserve to be better; that is reserved for those worthy.” Wicker thought this every morning as she turned her blemished key in the cabinet lock and grabbed the glass bottle of penzentamine. Whistling, she poured the “correct” dose into cups while the line at the window grew with patients patiently awaiting their cure.