Chapter 2: A Doctor's Prescription for Chaos

Chapter 2: A Doctor's Prescription for Chaos

The lingering scent of antiseptic and old paper in Dr. Alistair Finch’s waiting room was a strange comfort. It was the smell of Leo’s childhood: scraped knees, flu shots, and the annual physicals his mother always insisted on. The office, with its worn leather chairs and framed pastoral paintings, was an analogue sanctuary in a digital world, a world that had left Leo feeling hollowed out and furious. He had booked this "routine check-up" for stress, a claim that was both a lie and the absolute truth.

The door creaked open and Dr. Finch himself appeared, his spectacles perched on the end of his nose, his eyes holding their familiar, mischievous twinkle. “Leo Vance. Good to see you, son. You’re looking a little frayed around the edges. Come on back.”

Leo followed him into the cozy, book-lined office. It was the polar opposite of Innovate Corp’s sterile expanse. Here, knowledge was bound in leather and paper, not trapped in the cold ether of a server farm. Dr. Finch gestured for him to sit.

“So,” the doctor began, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Leo’s arm. “The nurse tells me you’re here for stress. I can’t imagine why. A sharp young man like you, working at that shining beacon of progress on the hill. Shouldn’t you be happy as a clam, living the corporate dream?”

There was a cynical edge to his friendly tone that Leo had always appreciated. Dr. Finch had been the town’s doctor for forty years; he’d seen Innovate Corp grow from a plucky startup into a monolithic entity that treated the local community as its personal fiefdom.

The cuff tightened, then hissed as it deflated. Dr. Finch frowned at the gauge. “145 over 95. A bit high for a healthy man of twenty-eight. That’s a VP of Marketing number. What’s really going on, Leo? Your mother would have my hide if I let you stroke out over a spreadsheet.”

The genuine concern, so starkly different from Brenda Mills’s placid indifference, broke the dam. The cold resolve Leo had nurtured for two days cracked, and the hot frustration poured out.

“Someone is stealing my lunch, Doctor.”

Dr. Finch paused, his pen hovering over Leo’s chart. “I see. And is this a metaphorical lunch, representing your stolen dreams and ambitions?”

“No,” Leo said, leaning forward, the words tumbling out. “My actual, physical lunch. For twelve weeks in a row. I make… I make sandwiches. Really good ones. The last one was slow-roasted turkey on toasted ciabatta with a sun-dried tomato and basil aioli.” The memory of his lost creation felt like a phantom limb.

“Go on,” Dr. Finch said, a flicker of something that wasn't medical interest in his eyes.

“I went to HR. For the twelfth time. I told them it was theft, that it was creating a hostile work environment. And do you know what the Senior Manager told me?”

“I can’t possibly imagine,” the doctor said, though his grin suggested he could.

“She told me to ‘bring something less tempting’.”

Dr. Finch let out a bark of laughter, a genuine, wheezing sound of delight. He slapped his knee. “Oh, that’s rich. Brenda Mills, isn’t it? Her husband sees me for his gout. The man eats pâté like it’s pudding. The hypocrisy is thicker than his gravy.” He leaned back, steepling his fingers. The professional physician was gone, replaced by a conspiratorial grandfather. “So the system, in its infinite wisdom, has blamed you for being the victim of a crime because your sandwiches are too delicious.”

“Exactly,” Leo said, feeling a profound sense of relief. He was finally being understood.

“And this is causing you… gastrointestinal distress?” Dr. Finch asked, a sly glint behind his spectacles.

“It’s causing me to want to commit a felony,” Leo muttered.

“No, no, no,” the doctor tutted, waving a dismissive hand. “Felonies are messy. They create paperwork. What we need here is not a crime, but a… medical event. A karmic realignment delivered via the digestive tract.”

He swiveled in his chair and pulled a heavy medical tome from the shelf. The Physician’s Desk Reference. He flipped through the pages with an expert thumb. “Innovate Corp. I’ve treated half their executive board. Arrogant, overpaid peacocks, the lot of them. They come in here complaining about stress from their ‘demanding jobs’ while their assistants are doing all the work. They treat this town like their personal playground and its people like their servants.”

His eyes lit up. “Ah, here we are.” He turned the book around for Leo to see, pointing to a specific entry. “Polyethylene Glycol 3350. A powerful osmotic laxative. In layman's terms, it pulls a massive amount of water into the colon. The results are… dramatic. Swift. Unstoppable. Like Niagara Falls, but brown.”

Leo stared at the page, his heart beginning to hammer against his ribs. “You want me to poison him?”

“Poison?” Dr. Finch recoiled in mock horror. “Heavens, no! Poison is illegal. I would never suggest such a thing.” He slid a prescription pad towards him and uncapped his fountain pen. “I am, however, concerned about your stress-induced constipation, Leo. It’s clearly a side effect of this hostile work environment. I am prescribing you a high-potency laxative to regulate your system. It’s a perfectly legitimate medical treatment for a condition you clearly have.”

He began to write, his pen scratching across the pad with theatrical flair.

“You will take this prescription to the pharmacy,” he instructed, his voice low and gleeful. “You will pay for it, and you will keep the receipt. The medication is a tasteless, odorless powder. It dissolves completely in liquids. Or, for that matter, in a creamy, vibrant sauce. Like an aioli. Or perhaps a special avocado spread.”

A slow smile spread across Leo’s face. He was seeing the shape of it now. It was brilliant.

“Now, this is the important part,” Dr. Finch continued, tearing the sheet from the pad with a flourish. “You are not setting a trap. You are preparing your own medicated meal for your own medical needs. You must, under no circumstances, warn anyone not to eat it. In fact, you should label it clearly with your name, just as you always do. If some greedy, entitled fool were to steal a man’s lunch, and that lunch happened to contain another man’s prescribed medication… well, that wouldn’t be a poisoning, would it?”

He slid the prescription slip across the desk. “That would be theft of a controlled substance. An entirely different, and much more serious, legal problem for the thief. A problem HR couldn’t ignore.”

Leo picked up the small piece of paper. It felt heavier than a hundred of Brenda’s useless reports. On it, in the doctor’s elegant script, were his name, the name of the laxative, and the words, “As Directed.” It wasn’t just a prescription; it was a license. It was permission to fight back.

He looked at Dr. Finch, at the pure, unadulterated chaos twinkling in the old man’s eyes. This wasn’t just about a sandwich anymore. It was about striking a blow against the casual cruelty and arrogance of a culture that believed itself untouchable.

“Doctor,” Leo said, his voice steady and calm for the first time in days. “Thank you. I feel my stress-induced constipation clearing up already.”

Dr. Finch grinned. “Glad to hear it, son. Now go. And for heaven’s sake, document everything. Justice, like a good meal, is all in the preparation.”