What's In the Bottle? A Backwards Story by Lenitschka

(This story was written starting with the bottom paragraph and moving up to the beginning)

The clerk handed me the bag without meeting my eye. He looked to be about eighteen and was probably annoyed I had interrupted his game of Angry Birds. No one came to the corner store at this hour, and that was probably the way the kid liked it. I didn’t mind it either, no one around to dial 9-1-1 or kick up a fuss.

I turned the corner and pulled out my one and only purchase, leaving the plastic bag on the sidewalk. The wind would pick it up later and throw it against the fence with the rest of the garbage.

This was it. I was really going to do this now. No one was here to stop me. No one would stop me. I was really going to do it this time.

I was certain that the bottle in my hands would do the trick. I had chosen it off the  shelf without much thought. It looked dangerous, and its contents were probably meant for car maintenance or shining shoes, not human consumption.

The letters were in a language I didn’t speak, but the bottom of the bottle had an array of pictures in triangles; a hand being corroded by a drop of water, an explosion, and a skull and crossbones, just like the pirate hats I had made out of black construction paper and liquid wite-out when I was seven. I imagined those things happening to me; the exploding, the corroding, and turning into that leering skull. But then, that was what I had wanted. I was almost certain.

I turned the bottle over and over in my hands. There really was no reason not to. Twisting the cap off I raised it to lips and gulped it down. It smelled like fermentation and mint and fire, but I swallowed.

My teeth ached, as if I had drunk a glass of frigid water, but my tongue burned. It felt like I had thrown back a shot of Irish whiskey in one gulp. I opened my mouth wide as if I expected flames to come out. I took a step forward, trying to look purposeful, but the street lamps in front of me swayed. They looked like grass blowing in the breeze rather than solid iron posts.

I waved my hand in front of my face. I think. There was motion that started in my shoulder and extended to where my fingertips usually were. Something pink passed before my eyes. It could have been five fingers; it could have been the finger, or a bloody stump. All I saw was a blur. I closed my eyes, head drooping, like a person drunk for so long she no longer knows she’s drunk, and then, drunk, awoke to the world which lay before me.

Head of State - Death by Dictator

I have one shot. I have one shot. Like a mantra, the words turned over and over in Larry's head. They focused his shaking hands, steeled his jittering nerves, and stiffened his slacking spine. From his perch halfway up the Labourers building, he was hidden in the shadow cats by the surrounding buildings in the sun of the August twilight, but was granted a view of over half the city.

Larry looked down and saw his target parading through the streets, right on schedule, according to the plan. His stomach dropped out from the soles of his feet, giving him a lighter, airy feeling, a nauseating sensation of emptiness.

Empty.

That is what his life had become since the conflict started. He had lost so much to this terrible man and those who followed him. Above all, the peace that had been shattered by the atrocities he had committed, the war that had ravaged the land and torn up the beautiful cities. Larry could end it all right now, he could shoot him in the head from here and it would all be over, finally. The nauseating feeling crept higher up his esophagus, and Larry had to fight to keep that down. It would do no good for that to happen now.

The pomp and ceremony, the roaring crowds, the parading soldiers brought his focus back to his target.

There was a time and a place for for the termination of his target. Everything was and would proceed according to plan. Stick to the plan.

Larry stole back into the building. The halls were dark and empty, as the plan said they would be. He stalked through them, carefully, quietly, even though he didn't need to. He traversed the catwalk that connected the Labourers building to the Capitol Tower. The parade was proceeding under him now, down there on the street, approaching the Victorius Entryway. Larry worried for a moment, fearing that he would be seen by a stray glance in his direction. But no, not a soul would be gazing up here at this moment.

Larry breached the Capitol Tower's perimeter,entering through the maintenance shed. and stopped to double check that he was ready. He checked his pistol.

One shot. One shot. The words bounced around his cranium like the echo of children playing in the now empty schools, haunting... One bullet and it would suddenly be over. He straightened his uniform, brushed his tousled hair out of his eyes, and, as he stalked the hallways again, making his way to the planned destination, his thoughts trailed backward through time, replaying continuously had it had all started.

It was an accident really. He started his military career with no more ambitions than to provide a living for himself, and pick up a some new skills along the way. Then it happened, some cause, now long forgotten, that divide men and created rivals. In a moment of foolhardy faith in himself Larry rose and took a stance, and found that he stood alone. Then the chaos started, but he found other he thought like he did, men and women who supported him, helped sharpen ideas and philosophies, gave him a purpose, directed his energies. It could have been anyone else.

Then everything spiraled out of control.

Larry wasn't sure if he could recount the exact events and moments that brought him to this point, but it didn't matter. Now was. Like a portrait, a photograph or an insect trapped in amber, nothing could stop what was going to happen.

Here it was. Suddenly in front of him: the door to the throne room. No guards, as planned. they were needed to guard the target. Larry took a breath, then opened the door and went in. He wanted to be there when his quarry was led into the room.

And there Larry stood on his dais, trying to exude confidence and control, as the traitor was led in, and the cheering crowd filled the room like a gas filling a container. The parade was quieter now, but still sizzled and buzzed with exuberance, and when the High Guard called out: "Master Commander Lawrence LeRoy Smith will now proceed with the ceremonial execution of the convicted traitor, Wilson Church," the crowd finally grew deathly silent. For almost all gathered, it was their first public execution. Hopefully, it would be their last.

Larry drew his pistol with its one bullet out of his ceremonial holster, and stared the traitor in the eyes. Those eyes, which had once looked on Larry with the eyes of a friend, a brother, had taken the other side in that long forgotten issue; his oppistion had caused so much bloodshed, so much anger, and so much loss. So it goes.

"Larry, you don't have to do this."

"Yes. I do."

"You can still fix this, you can still fix everything!"

"I am fixing it. Wilson, this is what you've forced me into."

Defiance, then pleading, and finally resignation. Larry could, even now, read his friend's face.

"Fine. Do what you must."

Louder, so that the gathered witnesses could hear, "Wilson Church, for you crimes against the state and humanity, you have been sentenced to death. Any final words?"

Wilson mumbled.

"What was that?"

Wilson looked up tears in his eyes. "Don't miss." He leaned his forehead lightly against the barrel of the pistol.

And then, Master Commander Lawrence LeRoy Smith, the accidental dictator, pulled the trigger and ended the conflict.

The End

Villains to Heroes: A Death By Hail

The sky looked cloudy, but this was Oregon, what else was new? I could wait for him here.

He would probably show up any minute now. I looked back at campus one more time, but still no sign of him. Watch this be the one day he didn’t show up, when I finally got up the courage to talk to him.

No, he had to come today. It had to be today. I couldn’t get up the courage another day. I looked back at the door again.

There he was. Tall, lean and muscular. That look that jocks always have in movies. I didn’t think people actually looked like that in real life. Not until the first time I saw him. He started climbing the stairs and I shivered, even though I was wearing a thick coat. I couldn’t see him, couldn’t think about him without It coming to mind.

He stopped at the same picnic table he always ate at, the one with a pole but no umbrella. Any shade this area may have had probably was torn up the same year the school was built. Or maybe administration had decided we didn’t need to block out the sun. It never showed up anyway.

The sky rumbled and thick drops starting falling here and there, creating dark splotches on the cement steps. I hadn’t pictured having this conversation in the rain. 

I shivered again as I drew near to him. I opened my mouth but it was dry. Still, he turned, probably sensing eyes on him, though it can’t have been a new experience for someone who looked like him. He raised one eyebrow at me in a smirk.

“What?” he said.

“I . . .”

My throat was sticking. I felt cold and queasy and like I wanted to run away. The rain was getting thicker, and people were holding binders over their heads as they ran back down the steps and into the school.

Tell him. My inner braver, self urged. He should be held responsible.

He looked up at the sky and grimaced. A pellet of ice hit his face and he winced. He didn’t look as pretty when he was in pain.

He rolled his eyes and pulled up his hood.

“Whatever,” he shrugged and started towards the steps.

It was too late, I hadn’t said anything. Really what could I have said? Would it have made a difference? Would it change what he had done to me?

“Wait!” I shouted, and I ran after him. The hail was falling thickly now, bouncing on the football field and sliding across the cement. He heard me anyways, and turned, soon enough to see my foot slide over a stair coated in hail and fall backwards.

He reached for me, involuntarily. I guess even guys like him have hero reflexes sometime, but it didn’t matter. My head hit the cement with a crack. I stared up at the hail. It pelted my motionless face, and then his face was there, beautiful but growing fuzzier.

The last thing I see will be my attacker’s eyes, I thought. But this time he’s pretending to save me.

And then the world went dark.

Anthony and the Goldfish

     Anthony Mason had a simple life. His one bedroom apartment had one small bathtub, one small kitchen sink, one closet with one shelf with one book and one fish bowl holding one goldfish. Each and every morning he woke up at precisely six thirty AM to the one radio station he ever grew a taste for and get ready to go to the one job he ever had.

     Anthony liked simplicity. It let him know where he would be and when. It let him see his future, because every day was exactly the same. When asked what his plans were on such and such a day, he knew. Anthony liked to think to himself that if anything horrible happened and for some odd reason he was accused and had to recall where he was at such and such a date, he would be able to recall with vivid detail because he always was where he always was.

     Each day passed with little consequence. He didn’t watch television or read any books. In his free time he played solitaire with real cards, and most of the time he won. At work he kept to himself. He got all of his work in on time and in the right order. His inbox and outbox seemed perfectly balanced, because his pace never changed and the job never seemed to change either. Anthony liked that his job never changed, because it meant that he never had to learn anything new. No stress. No headache. Just a balance of inbox and outbox.

     However on this particular day, that balance seemed a bit off. That morning, when getting ready for his day, he tripped over the one chair in his apartment that he had forgotten to push in under his one table the night before. It was something that he had never forgotten to do. His morning was run almost by muscle memory, it seemed, and the slightest change effected his trajectory. Anthony was shaken, and while feeding his goldfish before heading to the office he shook out too much food into the bowl. He burnt the one egg he made for himself and he dropped his one slice of toast butter-side down on the floor.

     At work he tried desperately to get back into his usual state of mind, but he couldn’t. The inbox became slightly higher than his outbox and before long he couldn’t take it. Anthony went to his boss’s office and asked for the rest of the day off. He explained that he wasn’t feeling well. Anthony’s boss obliged, half surprised that Anthony had left his desk other than for lunch, and half surprised that the man had, for the first time in the many years that he had worked there, seemed to be out of sorts.

     Anthony quickly drove home, distraught that he could not precisely predict the traffic conditions at that odd time of day. He wondered what he was doing, heading home early. And for what? Burnt eggs? A slight trip? No. It had to be something else. He never forgot to push that chair in. Something was very wrong, he thought.

     When Anthony got to his simple home, with its one table and one chair and one closet with one shelf with one book and one fish bowl with one goldfish, he realized that the one goldfish was floating upside down. When Anthony realized that the goldfish was dead from eating too much. That it was dead from the mistake he made earlier, his distress tripled.

     Anthony rushed from his home to the pet store in order to buy a new goldfish. That empty goldfish bowl would ruin the order of his home. Every day he would wake up and look at it and re-enter this unbreakable funk that he found himself in. Anthony got to the pet store, laid the dollar and a half it cost for the little fish on the counter and demanded a goldfish. He was brought a fish, vibrant and gold, in a little plastic bag of water. Anthony ran to his car, fish in hand, and sped off towards home.

     For the first time, Anthony was weaving through traffic, unable to bear his current state, no, his very location and the very time of day he was located there. It was so out of the ordinary. Anthony noticed that the radio dial had somehow been bumped and was playing something completely foreign to him. He fiddled with it vehemently and swerved around the road. Before he could get the radio station in tune, the goldfish and its bag slid off the passenger seat and onto the floor. Anthony, furious with the clumsy nature of the day and with no regard for where he was going or, in all reality, what he was operating, reached for the bag on the floor of the passenger seat. As he leaned to grab the bag, his other hand turned the steering column without Anthony’s knowledge.

     Anthony seized the goldfish and its bag.

     He heard the screeching of rubber and the honking of a horn.

     Anthony erected himself, bag in hand and saw the last sight of his simple life. One semi-truck grill crashed headlong into Anthony’s one car. When they pulled the car out from under the eighteen wheeled behemoth, the top half of Anthony Mason was gone. His right arm was laid free on the passenger seat, and his right hand still gripped the plastic bag holding a goldfish, still swimming in its tiny plastic sea.

-Eric T. Behr

Death by Choking on a Small Object - by Sasha

“Oh Matthew, are you sure about this?”

“Come on, Patty, I come here all the time.”

The door, a small wooden rectangle surrounded by dusty red panelling, bore a small, green sign reading ‘Mr. Mac’s Burgers.’ Old, flaky paint depicted a picture of a cheeseburger underneath the garish yellow letters, in case the point didn’t already get across.

“It looks awfully dirty,” Patricia remarked disdainfully.

“It’s called a dive,” Matt pointed out. “They’re supposed to be dirty. It’s part of the charm.”

Patricia shuddered as Matt touched the greasy door handle and stepped inside. The woman, dressed in an impeccable yellow skirt and cream blouse, was careful not to touch any part of the door or frame as she tiptoed across the threshold.

If the bedraggled patrons of the restaurant thought it strange for someone dressed like Patricia to walk into their mangy downtown burger joint, they didn’t show it. Two men with scraggly beards and plaid shirts were playing poker at one of the tables, and a woman was snoring at a booth at the back of the room. A greasy, balding man with a wispy blonde mustache and a round belly stood behind the baby blue counter, wiping it down with a rag that looked even dirtier than the rest of the store. As soon as he saw Matt walk in, his eyes lit up.

“Mattie, my boy!” he exclaimed boisterously. “And… who’s this?” He looked Patricia quickly up and down, then shot Matt a surprised look.

“This is Patricia,” Matt said. “Patty, this is Merle.”

“Pleased ta meet ya,” said the old man, offering a grease covered hand.

“Yes, it’s – a pleasure,” Patricia hesitantly replied. She pressed her small hand quickly into Merle’s, gave one small shake, and then quickly withdrew, pulling a white handkerchief from her purse and wiping her hand down.

“Not from around here, are you?” Merle asked.

“No, I’m afraid not,” said Patricia. “This is the first time Matt and I have met up outside of school. I was anxious to meet his – er – friends.”

“He ain’t got many friends, I can tell you that,” said Merle, gesturing grandly to the nearly empty restaurant and chuckling to himself. “Naw, I’m just kidding,” he said after a moment, clapping a hand on Matt’s shoulder and winking. “Mattie’s got plenty of friends – you know, the gangsters and the hookers, that sort of lot.”

Patricia looked confused but Merle burst into laughter and Matt shot him a dirty look. “He’s kidding,” he reassured Patricia, who in turn pretended to giggle.

“Anyway, what can I get for you?”

“Er – a burger?” Patricia chanced.

“Well of course I’ll get you a burger,” Merle said. He leaned in a little closer so Patricia could see his row of yellowing teeth. “The question is what kind ya want,” he said with a wink.

“Um –”

“You can get the supreme,” Matt chimed in. “You like all the normal things on burgers, right? Cheese, bacon, pickles, lettuce, mayonnaise, you know.”

“Yes, I’ll have that,” Patricia agreed.

“Perfect!” exclaimed Merle, so loudly that the woman at the back of the restaurant turned over and stopped snoring momentarily. “And the usual for you, Mattie?”

“You got it,” the boy replied. Merle turned and left through a pair of stain-covered double doors to what Patricia could tell just from the slightly sickening smell must be the kitchen.

“You wanna sit down?” Matt asked.

Patricia glanced at the baby blue stools next to the counter, most of which appeared to be covered in ominous red and yellow stains. However, upon quickly glancing about the rest of the restaurant, she could see that she wouldn’t find anything better.

“Sure,” she said quietly. She pulled out the handkerchief from her purse again and quickly wiped down the nearest seat before sitting down as lightly as possible. Matt sat down much less hesitantly on the stool beside her.

“I know it’s not exactly your kind of place – ” Matt began.

“No, it’s perfectly fine,” said Patricia, a little too calmly. “It’s – quaint.”

“I just didn’t really want to go to your parent’s place. You know, I didn’t think they’d –”

“Approve of you?” Patricia asked. For a moment she lost her haughty air and let out a sigh. “Of course they’d approve of you, Matthew. Just because you don’t come from the same place that we do doesn’t mean they’d think any less of you. You’re a wonderful person, you know, and –”

“Burgers are ready!” Merle exclaimed, reemerging with a bang from the kitchen.

“That was quick,” Patricia remarked.

“One supreme for the lady,” Merle announced, placing a tray bearing the largest burger Patricia had ever seen right in front of her. “And one flamethrowin’ hogspittin’ moonwalkin’ Kansas for Mr. Matthew.” Patricia couldn’t quite tell if Matthew’s tray contained a burger or just a pile of reddish-brown sauce.

“Thanks,” said Matthew, and Merle gave him one of his signature winks.

“Here it goes, I suppose,” Patricia said, biting down into her burger.

It was quite possibly the best burger Patricia had ever tasted in her life. She couldn’t hope to describe the particular flavor of the combination of cheese, beef, and no doubt hundreds of other processed ingredients that made their way past her tastebuds into her stomach. Once she took the first bite, all thoughts of her previous conversation with Matthew were put on hold, as she simply could not stop eating the delectable treasure that she had been offered at the greasiest, dirtiest dive she had ever entered in her life. She took bite after bite, quickly devouring the beast of a burger, practically inhaling the thing until suddenly she spluttered, spraying bits of pickles and onions all over the counter.

“Are you okay?” Matt asked.

Patricia couldn’t answer. She couldn’t make any noise. She placed her hands around her throat in the universal symbol, and stumbled off of her stool, trying to expel the small piece of burger that had lodged itself in her windpipe.

“Patricia?” Matt said again, rather stupidly. The girl reached out to him with one hand, clutching her neck with the other.

Matthew didn’t make a move to help the poor girl. Merle had already made his way back into the kitchen. The two men playing poker looked up once from their game before returning to their business, and the woman in the back of the room continued to slumber on.

Patricia’s eyes were wide, and if she was angry or shocked, Matt couldn’t tell. He simply watched as the pretty young woman continued to struggle, slowly bending over further and further until she fell to the ground, shook for a few more moments, and then stopped.

“Merle!” Matt called.

The fat owner made his way out of the kitchen, holding an enormous butcher’s knife. “Oh, it was really that easy?” the chef asked. He placed the knife on the counter and proceeded to wrench the pearl necklace and earrings off of the girl’s body before picking up her purse. “Help me move her, would ya Mattie?”

Matt took Patricia’s ankles and Merle took her hands. They made their way into the grimy, smelly kitchen and tossed her lifeless corpse into the deep freeze. Matt wiped his hands on his jeans once the job was done.

“You got your eye on anyone else?” Merle asked.

“Oh I don’t know,” Matt said. “There’s this pretty girl in my geography class who says she’s never been to this part of town before…”

Death is Cold

Southbound 75th Street, between 98th and 90th Avenues

It was getting darker by the minute. I should’ve known it would, it’s been winter for months now, and I’ve lived at this latitude my whole life. I should’ve known that it would get dark. And cold… it was very cold. I flinched as the breeze hurled a stray snowflake into my eye. The sky had been clear just moments ago and still there were tiny particles of ice floating down from it.

I shivered.  The wind was picking up quickly, no wonder there were flurries and a clear sky, the wind was just blowing around the hardened crystals from the roof and treetops. I cupped my thinly gloved hands around my eyes for a moment, before deciding that it would be better to keep them in my pockets.

I continued walking down the street. There wasn’t a sidewalk anymore. It was my own fault; I’d mistaken the bus number, and was now half way across town. I left the bus as soon as I saw a place I vaguely recognized. I suppose that had been my second mistake.  I’d only been on this road twice before in my life, and both times I had been driving a car.  That is why I had to follow the road, even though the road had no sidewalk.  Jaywalking was suddenly something I had to do… I mean, I had no choice after ending up on a thin stretch of median.  I wasn’t scared of the cars though, there was a huge frozen ridge of plowed snow between them and me.  No, I was much more afraid of the coming dark, and the wind, and the cold.

As the wind picked up, it seemed to steal away all my precious body heat.  My legs and toes were completely numb in my unlined yet fashionable leather boots and not-quite-yet-worn-out blue jeans.  I hadn’t dressed for this weather at all. Well, I hadn’t planned on this trek through what appeared to me to be a frozen wasteland either.  I looked at the cars going by, and the wind pulled tears from my eyes.

I wondered what they thought as they drove by, probably nothing to do with me. I walked on. There was still no sidewalk. But there was a sort of median between the residential street and the main road I was following.  The two were parallel, so I did my best to navigate the uneven, icy footing of the quiet residential one. Not an easy feat in heels. It is a wonder I hadn’t fallen yet.

Not even a bus stop. I looked ahead. There were traffic lights on the horizon.  Goodness, it is almost impossible to describe the difference in distance perception when driving vs. when on foot.  It really didn’t seem so far when driving.

It had taken me ages to get to that other intersection. The one I most distinctly remembered while driving. There was no left-turning light, and that road was always busy.  As a young driver, it took me a rather embarrassing amount of time to figure out that I had to turn on the yellow. Provided no one in the oncoming traffic was going to run it, as was my fear.

The street lamp flicked on. Now I’m really in trouble. Of course my phone was either malfunctioning because of the cold, or the battery was dead, either way, useless.  And hadn’t my last text read “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine”?  Oh the irony.

Of all the things I could be, fine wasn’t one of them.  The wind stung my face, and my purse bumped up against my leg with each step. You’d think that last part wouldn’t have necessarily been such a negative thing, I mean, that is what purses do when you walk, but I couldn’t feel it.

I could feel the motion of the swinging purse on my arm, and based on its irregular swinging, I knew it was bumping against something. In my brain, I knew it was my leg. But that idea most certainly did not come from any sensory systems in my leg.  I could not feel anything.  My brain told my legs to walk, and they still kept going, so I guess that counted for something.

I looked up from the icy ground again, and saw that the stop lights were closer, and better yet, that there was finally a bus stop on the other side of the road. The residential road turned sharply, so I crossed the median, and then used the cross walk to get to the stop. 

Beyond the stop, further south, was the direction I would have gone if I was driving.  Shockingly it was even less conducive to walking than the residential street had been. There was no side walk, and there was no street. It was just the snowy side of the road that backed a long fence, the kind of fence that lines those residential areas.

It would be better to wait at this bus stop. I knew at least one of the buses that stopped here would take me where I needed to go.

I stepped into the glass interior, which was rather pointless, since there was a space between the glass and the ground about four inches high. The wind still blew around my feet and the frigid air filled the space.

I looked at the list of bus numbers, and then turned to the bench. The metal seat would be freezing, but my feet hurt from my heeled boots. So I sat down.

I hadn’t realized how much my shoulders were aching from the weight of the backpack. I leaned back, and rested my head on the wall.

It was so cold, that as I exhaled, the mist instantly became solid and opaque frost on the glass wall. I was so tired; I had walked such a long way.  It was almost completely dark now, the headlights passed me by, and the traffic lights flashed brightly.  I think it was actually snowing now, I could see it just where it was falling beneath the streetlight. I was so cold; my toes were actually burning, and the burning felt almost comforting.  I let my tense shoulders relax; I was already slumped up against the side anyway. So tired…  The moisture the wind had sucked out of my eyes rolled down my cheek, and against my will, my eyelids drooped, and then were closed.