The Chardonnay Conspiracy
BY R. L. SAUNDERS
EVERY DAY, AFTER SHE got up and had her first cup of bitter black brew, Mrs. C_ stopped the clock.
Then she turned the hands back 5 minutes.
That was why she kept the old thing. She had to bring the clock weights up every night to “wind” it, and that’s when she would then re-set it to the correct time according to her flip-phone.
This routine was one way she could turn back time, if only for a short while.
She’d done this ever since her breakdown.
She didn’t remember what that Foundation-hired psych called it. Something with “denial” in the middle of it.
Gradually, over years, she weaned herself off the drugs. They kept prescribing them, and she kept storing them daily in the toilet. Just before she flushed. They thought she had gotten be
