MARIE
                    Episode One
Copyright (C) 2009. Frederick Emory Herbert. All Rights Reserved.
 
   Marie stared at the one room apartment. Hardly the home she imagined 
when she was in college. She wanted an apartment like they had on FRIENDS. But 
life wasn’t a sitcom. It was a soap opera.
   Marie had watched soaps all her life. She had seen mentally ill 
characters on TV. But none of them were like her. She didn’t even think of herself 
as mentally ill. She thought she was normal. Sure, she had had a psychotic 
breakdown. Sure, she lost her receptionist job. But she was normal. She 
thought. But no one else did.
   “I want to say that things will work out. That I’ll have a happy life,” 
Marie told her mother Rosemary. “I don’t want to just sit here and 
complain about life. But what can I do? I’m damaged goods.”
   “Don’t look at it that way,” Rosemary told her daughter. “You are 
young and you can have  a happy life.”
   “Married? To a man who will always point out that I’m crazy?”
   “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You aren’t the only person who is 
bipolar.”
   “Bipolar to the point of psychosis.”
   “All right. But you have a doctor now. You have enough on Disability to 
live in your own apartment. Don’t ignore the good things that are happening 
as well.”
   Marie knew that her mother was right. There had to be a positive side to 
life. If not a rainbow, than something worth having.
   “When I meet people, they often ask what I do. I can’t just say that 
I’m bipolar and live on Disability.”
   “Why don’t you get a volunteer job?” Rosemary suggested.
   “That’s an idea. If it doesn’t work out, it won’t matter financially.” 
Marie smiled. She had hope.
   The next day Marie went to the AIDS clinic near the Dion Hospital. She 
was nervous, but told herself not to be. “The worse they can do is reject me. 
So what if they do?”
   When Marie arrived at the clinic, she met Marcus Jones, a handsome black 
man.
   “I am the nurse who runs the clinic,” Marcus told Marie. “Why did you 
want to work here?”
   “I lost one of my best friends to AIDS. I was young at the time. People 
were saying all sorts of things. I don’t want to repeat them, but they were 
ugly. Paul was such a nice person.”
   Marie thought she might cry.
   “He sounds like a great guy,” Marcus stated. “People still get ugly 
about this disease. But things are better then they were.”
   Marie wondered if she should tell Marcus the truth about her disability. 
He seemed so nice, but you can’t always assume that because someone seems 
nice, they won’t react negatively.
   “Is something wrong?” Marcus asked.  
   Marie smiled. “I could never be an actress because I would get too 
nervous to audition. Interviews make me nervous. Even for a volunteer position.”
   Marcus smiled back. “There is no need to be nervous. We have a few 
routine questions and a police check. But there’s nothing to be nervous about. I 
appreciate your interest.”
   Marie shook his hand and said good-bye. She hoped to start working at 
the clinic, but who knows.
   “How did it go?” Rosemary asked her daughter after dinner.
   “I think they want me. But I’m unsure.”
   Suddenly Marie’s cell phone rang. It was a Marcus. “What does he want?”
 
TO BE CONTINUED