I pop the mushroom into my mouth, and the illusions start. No one will leave a mark, the memories stand tall. 30 years devoting my life to the company, all for nothing.

A couple days ago, I left the office. IT introduced a new technological advice that left a message: half the workforce was going to be gone. No one took the news kindly, but especially not Shawn. Shawn complained and freaked out for weeks about the humming noises the machine was making that was going to leave us homeless and just cogs in a machine. Shawn came into my office several times and reached straight for the bourbon, drinking straight from the bottle.

I had no idea what he was doing or why, but I understood the concern. We'd seen it in the news: the quantum press making leaps across the world of physics. It seemed like something only the nerdy scientists would be interested in, but the quantum press slowly was able to make calculations for the future. It started to build profiles of people's lives and ZeroShock, the company that patented the machine, charged thousands of dollars for an appointment with the quantum press.

People paid the company, and went in to get a read. The quantum press would answer their deepest fear or insecurity -- the wife with cancer, child with birth complications, and the impending layoff from work. It would tell people exactly what to take and exactly who to talk to to fix their lives, to cure their ailments, to help them invest millions of dollars in the machine.

We were a government contracted consulting company, and the government quickly took notice. The quantum press worked. It gave people the secrets to life that they yearned so deeply for, and in exchange for having your child healthy or being able to predict the next stock market crash, a couple thousand dollars was nothing.

About three weeks ago, the company announced we would be having a merger. We were the agents of the company set to work with ZeroShock on the quantum press, offering the service for all who could afford it. We attended presentations that were meant to assuage our concerns, but quickly realized the truth. We would be non-essential. Operating a quantum press was outside the skillsets of marketing oriented people like Shawn and I. The quantum press didn't need to be advertised. Everyone knew what it was, and when we finally got the machine into the office, security guards with assault rifles came into the building to protect the machine.

Lines would form around the entire building. In quick succession, we were called into meetings with our boss, Trevor. Shawn and I would watch as people came out of their meetings distraught, crying, with their heads down. Within the next couple hours, they'd get all their personal items off their desk and pack them into a box.

Shawn paced around my office almost every day, asking what he was going to tell his wife? His kids? If he found another job, that job would have also been outsourced to the quantum press. Shawn was drinking a lot. Don't get me wrong -- I was drinking too. I wasn't doing much better than he was, but I was just better at compartmentalizing my panic and not showing it to everyone.

One morning, Shawn came into my office with a present. It looked like a box you would put a wedding ring, so I asked:

"Are you proposing to me or something?"

"Open it," he demanded.

I opened the box and blood came spilling out. I knew at that moment I didn't want to go any further, but Shawn's creepy stare made it so I didn't have a choice. Inside were two red circles the size of a jaw-breaker, only these circles weren't candy -- they were flesh.

"They're my nipples," he said, taking another swig of my bourbon. "I realized that I'm in control of my life, not the quantum press. The thing was making me crazy, so I got rid of some of the discharge that was causing the chest pain."

I left the room, informed Trevor, and before we knew it, Shawn was carted away in a stretcher to the hospital. More clients coming into see the quantum press wondered what was going on, but all I knew was that Shawn's appointment was later in the day. Trevor canceled it, and I was called in instead.

"Look, I know how hard this is," Trevor said. "But you know this is the way things have to be."

I nodded, thanked him, and got my things. As I got off the elevator, I looked off in the distance, and then I went to Angie's, the bar across the street. I started with a shot of whiskey, and then started drinking their cheapest beer, refilling my cup every 20 minutes. How was I going to tell Natasha? Another shot. Another beer. I'd only been there an hour, maybe a little more. Or was it two? I don't remember. I chatted with the bartender about my work and how I needed a new job, and how I still couldn't figure out what to tell Natasha.

The next thing I knew, Trevor and the quantum press operating team walked through the door, laughing and joking.

"Excuse me," I told the bartender.

I left my seat, drank my last shot, and walked toward Trevor, and clocked him. Good riddance, I thought at the time. I never liked him that much to begin with. A couple people at the bar restrained me. The team gathered around Trevor to make sure he was okay, putting distance between myself and him. Pathetic. He still had his job and he could still support his family. What did he have to cry about?

The bartender was on the phone, getting some ice.

I spent a couple days behind bars while Natasha asked her family for money to pay bail. I had to tell her everything then and there, that I'd lost my job, didn't know what to do, and how the quantum press was taking over all of our jobs. All she did was hug me.

"That's it?" I thought. She wasn't mad?

The next few months would only get worse, though. Every job I applied to, the quantum press had taken over. My job as a consultant was rapidly losing its use. I was useless now. I picked up at the bakery unloading grain from the truck, but it only paid me $10 an hour. I couldn't pay tuition for Josh anymore, and so we applied for loans. We didn't get them.

I think right now about Shawn. I called the hospital, but they said he didn't want to talk. Natasha wasn't coming home until late. Josh would be coming home from school next week -- he said he'd take the next semester off to work and support the family. Well, what an awful father I was.

I don't even know if I can drive in a straight line anymore. But I have to just do this one thing before I move on. I press on. The lines in the road are blurring together. Eventually I get to the bridge, somehow safely. I pull over to the shoulder, and reach into the console for the whiskey. I take a swig, and it's bitter. I open the door once no cars are coming past, and go over to the side walk.

I look out into the river. The current is strong. There's just one more thing I have to.