Coffee Part 3

I stood up and went over to the window, my mind racing. It was surreal watching people in the street below going about their everyday business as I died by inches no more than a couple of hundred feet away.

I looked at the windows of the buildings opposite, trying to find someone watching, something that didn't fit somehow. I saw nothing but reflections and shadows.

I sat down again and slid a letter opener from the stationery carousel on my desk. One edge was dull but the other was sharper and serrated; perhaps it would do the trick, I thought.

Disgusted with myself I put the opener back into the caddy and raked sweaty hair back from my brow, my hand trembling.

This had to be some kind of obscene joke, didn't it? Some kind of test? 

But what if it wasn't?

I glanced across at my oblivous co-worker. She was leaning forwards in her chair, lips pursed in concentration. In her glasses I could faintly see the reflection of a spreadsheet.

I didn't know I was going to do it until I was standing up, the letter opener suddenly in my hand again.

Coffee Part 2

I stood and made my way over to the water cooler, almost tripping over my own feet as I went. I drank down a cup of water so cold it made my teeth ache and then swallowed another in quick succession. Water blorped in harmony with my guts as the chilled reservoir refilled. 

I sat down again and re-read the message, desperately hoping that I'd misread it earlier. No such fucking luck.

"Seriously, you look really awful," my colleague said, sounding genuinely concerned. Could she really be such an excellent actor?

"I... I'm not feeling too great," I admitted. "Did... did you put something in the coffee?" I smiled to make it seem like a joke, but just from the feeling in my lips I coud tell that it looked more like a grimace.

She just laughed and said something about how funny I was, then went back to her work.

My computer bleeped again and I opened the new e-mail with a groan.

"Kill her if you want to live," it said.

Coffee Part 1

I returned from the bathroom feeling wrung out, as if I'd been punched a dozen times in the stomach and then flushed down the crapper along with my diarrhoea. I slumped back down at my desk and cradled my head in my hands.

My computer beeped to indicate I'd received a new e-mail and I groaned, sitting up and blinking to try and clear my eyes. As I shifted my guts churned, pain knifing into them as I clenched against a sudden need to pass gas. After a few seconds the pain eased and I felt a burbling sensation as the gas shifted to a different place in my intestine.

I knew it would be back.

The e-mail was flagged as urgent and sent from an anonymiser. I would have pegged it as spam straight away, but it was addressed to me by name and the subject line was "DO NOT DELETE - IMPORTANT MESSAGE" I sighed and opened it, half expecting that it would turn out to be spam anyway.

"The coffee was poisoned. You have less than an hour to live."

I blinked and read it again, then glanced at the empty coffee cup on the corner of my desk.

"Are you alright? You look pale," my colleague asked from her desk a few feet away, brow furrowed.

"Um, yeah..." I lied, looking at her suspiciously. 

After all, it was she who made my coffee.

You.

It sits on an old steamer trunk, lit from above by the diffused glow of the attic's grimy skylight.

You step hesitantly towards the trunk, feeling the attic floorboards yield beneath your feet, creaking with each step. Your mouth is so dry that your tongue rasps when you swallow. You step into the square of light and find yourself shivering, for the late afternoon sunlight is unnaturally wan and cold, as if it belongs to the moon instead.

It makes the shadows darker.

Motes of dust swirl around you, silvery in the moonpale light, but you only have eyes for the skull.

It is yellowed and old, rough but for the smooth places at brow and chin where hundreds of hands have touched, hard bone worn smooth by time as much as friction.

It grins at you as you hesitate.

It grins at you as you slowly begin to lift your hand, and the shadows in its eye sockets seem to darken.

Your tentative fingers brush against the skull's forehead, feeling the smoothness there of yellowed bone.

It grins at you as you trail your fingertips down over the ridge of its nasal bone, over the enamel of its teeth, feeling a shiver of apprehension as you imagine the skull opening its jaw and biting down on your vulnerable fingers.

But all it does is grin.

You turn and run, heart pounding fit to burst, and nearly bowl your gathered friends over as you emerge into the sunlight. They laugh at your pale skin and sweaty hair and soon you're laughing, too. You did it, you really did it!

Upstairs, in the gathering darkness, the skull continues to grin.

On Writing

The author sat with a heavy sigh, the springs of his chair groaning as if in protest at his weight. He looked at the screen before him, at the accusing blankness of the page and the blinking of the cursor upon it.

"Chapter 1" he typed, and then hit return twice to begin a new line.

He sat back in his chair (to further metallic twinges of annoyance) and flicked through the pages of his novel outline,

He went back to his work in progress and highlighted what he'd typed so far, then hit the "Bold" button.

Chapter 1

his screen said.

He twirled a bit in his chair, then twirled back and frowned, decided it was time to get back to business.

He typed an opening sentence.

"It started with a growing dissatisfaction," he typed, then paused with his fingers hovering over his expensive wireless keyboard.

Then he deleted what he'd written in three angry key strokes.

He glanced at the system clock in the corner of his screen: 23:45 it said, in small black numerals that seemed to swim slightly when seen through the scrim of tiredness that glazed his eyes.

He sighed again and stood up quickly, his chair rolling back and bumping into the desk behind him. He switched his monitor off, ending the accusing blankness of the page beneath the lonely Chapter 1.

He went to bed, and when sleep came it was in spite of his frustration.