Taken a couple weeks off from The Angry Hourglass. Here's this week's return to the ring.
Bait and Switch
The poison had been much sweeter than Gene had anticipated.
The mayor had promised that the pint would at least be fifty percent high
octane vodka, but the solution has been so treackly, that he had a hard time
believing there was any alcohol in the mix at all.
He tried to concentrate on the receding tide in front of him,
specifically the remaining post from the pier his father had told him about. The
fishing platform had been knocked down well before he was born, back when
people were still brave enough to harvest food from the sea. The single post
phased into three posts and he knew that there indeed had been alcohol in his
drink. His vision continues to dissolve the beach sunset in front of him.
On the beach though, his book was useless. Gene wanted to
read this volume of poems as he waited for the poison to seep through his body,
but he couldn’t find the focus he needed to even make sure he was holding the
paperback right side up.
Of all the people no doubt watching him from a safe
distance, he sincerely hoped the Mayor had the best view. It had been his scheme
after all, and the man needed to ultimately be the one accountable if this didn’t
work. The pool of applicants for this year’s harvest had been smaller than
ever. Parents turned a blind eye to their teen’s promiscuity if in ensured they
wouldn’t be in consideration when it came to the yearly harvest. Gene, was more
in love with the ruins of the library than any girl he’d met on the island, so
when the yearly cull identified the sacrificial virgins, he was one of the few
to step forward.
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