A single push is all it takes to save a life or end one. The decision to make will never be mine, and I have long since learned that fact. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3 to grab my slender torso, stick me into a vein, and then press down on my plunger.  Quick to use, but easy to discard. My one time chance to help or ruin the future of an individual.

The administrator for the antidote to save a life. That is the ultimate goal. Being used to bring back happiness in a community, and to make things full and functioning again. Although, where there is joy, there is also anguish. Like yin and yang, the counterpart of life, is death. For such a dark purpose, no one wishes to be involved. The death penalty is one of the greatest examples of this situation. Other needles, possibly me one day, responsible for pumping a trio of lethal drugs into a human’s body system. Slowly stopping their heart, and stripping away their ability to live.

Wait. I see a pale hand reaching into my cupboard to get something. What is this person looking for?  Oh no, It’s me! I don’t want to go, but there is no stopping this hand from getting closer and closer to the box where I lay resting. Twisting in my loose pristine plastic packaging, I quickly realize that I am not the only one in this situation. A whole box full of fifty new needles including I, are being taken away. Where we are going I do not know, but soon the lid of the box is being sealed and I am set into darkness. Through my closed box, I hear snippets of sentences: insulin, diabetes, needles. Then we are lifted off the counter, set into a paper bag, and begin our journey to the unknown world.

As this person walks, the bag in which we are carried bounces softly against their leg. The lack of noise in the surrounding area tells me that it is most likely evening, around 8pm. Suddenly I hear another set of footsteps blending in with the person carrying me. Crunch, crunch, crunch. The unknown footsteps soon get louder and louder, as the stranger approaches us with an increase of quickened speed. Then BAM! I hear a grunt and the paper bag I’m in falls to the ground. Just mere seconds later, a rough hand reaches into the bag and jerks out my box of needles. In the strangers haste, the box flies open, and I am almost flung onto the rough cement ground. Several other needles tumble out, but the person leaves them there, and sprints away.

Due to the open lid of the box, I can briefly see the outside world. The stars twinkle in the clear night sky, and in the middle of the alley lies a groaning man. I assume he was the one who took us from the pharmacy, as a clean white paper bag lies a few feet from his barely moving body.

Next, I turn my attention to the man gripping my box in his dirty, hairy hand. He is still bolting away from the man he stole the needles from, and his scraggly and greasy hair makes his appearance look as if he lives on the streets. Although, the scariest part of him are his crazy bloodshot eyes. Red and wide open, it gives him the appearance of a tortured soul just waiting to leave the Earth so he can be judged, and sent to either Heaven or Hell.

We take a sharp right turn and then two lefts before we finally stop. It seems that we are under the overpass of a bridge, in a small rundown part of the city. The street looks deserted, other than a woman and two men who come slinking out of the shadows. Each one of them has bloodshot eyes, and stare greedily at the box of needles and I. They come to meet the stranger holding my box, and the three reach in and each take a crisp, plastic covered syringe in their hand. Before I know it, I too am being taken out of the box.
My thoughts spin at a mile per minute as I realize what they are planning to do with us. No no no! This is all wrong I think frantically. This is the exact thing I had always wanted to avoid, but I know it can’t be stopped. The choice is not mine, when they tear off my protective plastic, and fill my body with horrible unknown substances. The choice is not mine, as I am lifted to the inside of his elbow, and forced into his vein. The choice is not mine, as I assist in ruining this man’s life by giving him a deadly dose of a horrible chemical.

I get carelessly tossed to the ground as I have been used once, and will never be used again. My empty body lies on the ground watching as the hours pass, and soon I witness the man who stole me, fall to the ground.

Dead.

Guilt washes over me, as I have assisted in murdering this man. I could console myself by saying it wasn’t in my control, although this will haunt me for as long as I lay here on the ground. This goes to show that even something so small like myself, can have the power to tip the scale. In this case, I tipped the scale towards the side of death, and am forever the reason he ceases to exist.