Written By Brad Harness
Lila sat at her dining table, sipping a cup of tea and nervously tapping a pen against the place mat.
If this is successful, she thought, I wouldn’t have to work again in my entire life…!
That thought bothered her. After all, she had not spent 20 years in psychiatry to strike it rich. She had truly wanted to help people, and she believed that in all those years, she had helped people. Lots of them.
Of course, she thought further, she never wanted to cure her patients too quickly - Umm, a girl’s gotta live, right? The longer it took the more she could charge. But at some point, every good psychiatrist wants to see some signs of success. Otherwise, she would be living a lie.
A handsome-looking car slowed in front of her house and then pulled into her driveway. Lila noticed it was a late-model Porsche. Obviously her guest was doing alright for himself.
It was Michael Foster, from GTK Pharmaceuticals. He wore a nice looking forest green suit with matching tie and a crisp white dress shirt. His shoes were auburn wingtips. He slipped out of sight as he neared the front door and then the doorbell rang.
“Michael…” she smiled at him as she opened the door. “How nice to see you again. Do come in.”
He entered her house and removed his shoes, a sign of respect in Canadian homes.
“Come in, come in,” she motioned as she led him into the living room. “Care for some tea?”
“That would be nice.”
He took a seat across from Lila as she poured him some tea. He took it and thanked her with a nod of his head. Then they both sipped in silence before setting their cups down.
He looked at her and said, “I have something to show you, Lila.”
He opened his briefcase and took out two pages he wanted her to see.
“This one on the right shows you the various problems people suffer emotionally. This one on the left shows you the number of court convictions. You can see that there is a pretty decent match between the two.”
She looked them over and nodded. They were very similar to what she had discovered in her own research.
“That’s why I invented the Emotion Leveller pill,” she explained.
“At $2 a pill, daily, do you know how much that’s worth?” he asked.
NEXT WEEK: PART 6
