Rose yawned as she checked her watch. 5 more minutes and she’d be off of work and could go home for the weekend. She idly tapped her fingers on the keyboard as the second hand on the clock seemed to go slower and slower, even stopping altogether. Finally it reached the 8. She held in a yell of excitement as she, along with her coworkers, gathered their stuff for the weekend. As she strolled down the hallway past cubicle after cubicle, she smiled. She’d made it through her another week of work at her new company.
Now just the rest of my life. She thought as she dashed down the steps and out the door. She inhaled the smoggy New York air.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this. She rummaged around in her purse for her keys.
Hmm? She started looking more and more frantically when she realized she had walked to work that morning. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but as the jubilation of the weekend to come faded, she was starting to rethink her decision that morning.
Come on Rose, nothing to worry about. It’s hardly been dark for half an hour! Yeah. She’d be just fine. She rationalized as she drew her sweater closer and subdued a shiver. New York after dark was not somewhere she liked to be alone. She started the brisk walk back to her apartment, swiveling her head side to side as she quickened her pace.
Nothing to worry about Rose, nothing to worry about. Bang! Bang! She suppressed a scream and walked even faster, almost running now as her high heels beat a quick staccato on the pavement. Finally she made it to the intersection by her apartment. She was going to make it. As she stopped to wait for the light to tell her she could cross, she glanced to her right.
Funny, I’ve never noticed that street vendor before. She edged her way closer, trying to get a peek at the sign. Only… there was no sign. She gave up all pretense of not being interested in the booth, and let her curiosity get the better of her.
It’s just a little old man. She told herself, as she neared the stall. “Hello, beautiful girl. Would you like to try one of my special potions?” The old man inquired in a thick Middle Eastern accent. “Erm, no thanks,” Rose replied “just looking while I wait.” “For you? It is free. I can make all of your dreams come true in just a drop of one of these fine bottles. Would you like to find true love? Go back in time? Escape for a couple weeks? I can make that all happen.” Rose shrugged, but she was beginning to think those things didn’t sound so bad. So she’d take it back to her apartment, test it to make sure it wasn’t going to kill her, then have the poison control number handy. What could it hurt? “I…I guess I could just try one. How much did you say it costs?” “For you? Free tonight.” Rose tentatively reached out to take one of the tiny crystal bottles. She looked at the label, but it was in a foreign language. Deciding she had bothered the man long enough, she thanked him, crossed the street and neared the door to her apartment. She unlocked it with unseeing eyes, still thinking about what the man had said.
Her wildest dreams come true? If only...no. That was silly. It couldn’t bring people back from the dead. She thought as she pushed open the door to her tiny
New York apartment. She dropped her bags on the couch and went over to the sink in her kitchen. Squinting to try to figure out what the label on the bottle said, she couldn’t distinguish what language it was.
Typical. She thought as she turned it around in her hands, trying to find a hidden label in English or at least some language she could understand. Nothing. She set it down on the counter and stared at it. Then walked over to the refrigerator and opened it, gazing at molding produce and week old bologna sandwiches.
Man, I forgot to go to the store to grab supper. She opened the cupboard to find a can of beans, a can of exotic soup she had grabbed on a whim, and an ancient box of rice.
Well, rice doesn’t get old does it? As she grabbed the box she rummaged around until she found a few spices she could add for flavor.
Well, it’s better than the sandwich. She set some water on the stove to boil and turned around, her eyes going to the bottle.
I’d better eat first in case it’s not good on an empty stomache. She stalled, suddenly realizing the gravidity of what could happen if something would go wrong with that liquid. She gulped and turned her mind back to the water, which was now boiling. She poured the rice in and turned the burner down, setting a timer. She stared at the rice without really seeing it, her mind elsewhere. “I’ll just go watch some TV while I wait.” She thought out loud while walking the few steps to the couch and plopping down. She turned on the TV and began idly flipping through the channels, all the while her curiosity eating away at her. Could that little bottle really bring her happiness? Could it make that train stop before it smashed into her fiancé and became the last thing he ever saw? “Hah.” She laughed humorlessly, she had told him not to walk home that night but he hadn’t listened. She still remembered the last words she said to him before he breathed his last breath. “You’ll regret it.” She’d trilled out the door as he’d left her apartment that night. It was her fault he was out at all; she had called him needing his help on a paper for work. Always eager to help her, he’d readily agreed to come to her apartment that nice summer night. Had she known that would be the last time she’d see him she would have never called him, or even gone to his place instead. That was days before she had ran away from everything she had ever wanted or loved. If he was dead, what did she have to look forward to in life? Long work days and old boxes of rice. So here she was in
New York City in her little apartment, thousands of miles from anyone who truly knew her, staring at a bottle of liquid that could easily be poison. Or just water. No, that’d be crazy to think such a little bottle could change everything so easily. Beep-Beep! Beep-Beep! Beep-Beep! The timer went off. She jumped up turn the burner off and put the spices in the rice. She chewed without tasting as the scalding concoction burned its way down her throat. She put her plate in the sink and turned once again to face The Bottle. When had it become capitalized in her mind? Was in the moment she saw it, or the minute she realized the amount of damage it could do? Well, she didn’t care. She grabbed it with finality. She uncorked in and peered down into the tiny vial. She smelled it.
Well, it doesn’t SMELL bad. She looked at it one last time before downing the contents. She sat down on the couch waiting for it to take effect. I wonder how it’ll feel when he’s with me once again holding me in his arms? A smile crept onto her face as the vial took effect, taking an iron grip on her lungs as it slowly began to take effect.
Through the window you could barely see the flashing of lights as a police cruiser carted away the old man on the corner. They’d been waiting for years to pin him to any sort of crime, but he’d managed to slip through their grasp. He’d been reported to be selling unauthorized content on the street corner without a permit. An officer smelled the liquid “cyanide” he said knowingly. But the old man had been doing something much worse: poisoning people with their deepest hopes and dreams. Encouraging them to let their desires run rampant on their mind.
When the police found her a few days later she was laying there just as she’d left this world, with the bottle in her hands a smile on her face. She’d gotten her wish. She was with her fiancé that night.
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Aunica
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Emerald eyes and limbs to the skies.
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