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    Fan Fic: The Sweetest Thing I’d Ever Tasted

    The Sweetest Thing I'd Ever Tasted

    If there's one thing I'd learned in life, it's a bottle of gin a day earns you a label as an alcoholic. In college, though, things don’t work quite like they do in the natural world. The more you drink, the larger your sunglasses, and the more women you sleep with, the more recognition, envy, and respect you earn.

    When I think back to the first three years of college, memories appear similar to a distant dream. I remember faces, bodies and voices, but never conversations or moments. Once in a while, a bottle of gin would still be settling in my stomach when I’d be sitting through my philosophy professor’s latest rendition of some overly-exposed work of Plato. Back then, the gastric morning-after feeling was intolerable. Tonight, it would’ve been welcome.

    It wasn’t that I wanted to die. Overcoming the odds would’ve likely cemented my name in future stories around campfires about the guy who persevered while facing death. I could’ve become a local legend. It’s just that, like my time in college, I’ve always accepted things when things weren’t exactly going my way. Only this time, instead of sipping through a bottle of gin to coup my failures, I nearly started to pant at the sight of a glistening bottle of Hendrick’s resting only five feet away.

    I could hear the old bastard walking around downstairs; answering the phone, running the coffee maker, laughing through his primetime sitcoms. Hours earlier, he’d bought a pack of peppermint Girl Scout cookies from a charity-seeking child and her mother. High on their sale, they likely walked back down the steps of his front porch dubbing him a generous, caring neighbor. What I would’ve done for a sip of that gin.

    As the night wore on, he promised he’d be quick with me after each of his hourly visit to the bedroom. He said he’d done this before, and the least of my worries should be pain. Despite his keenness toward foreshadowing, he never took action. He just waltzed up to the bedroom, knives in hand, delivered his speech, and left.

    Each time he walked up the stairs, I’d count his steps. Fourteen every time. I suppose I counted with hope that by step eleven or twelve he’d have a heart attack and fall. To my dismay, he never did. He hit that fourteenth step every time.

    The final time he visited the bedroom was undoubtedly the most surprising. Like some sort of stage show, he dressed for the occasion as he hadn’t before. Brand new brown, leather cowboy boots, a dark-blue pair of Wranglers with a plaid button-up shirt tucked in, and a black, rolled-brim cowboy hat adorned the tall, peppered-haired man. To top the costume off, he had a Dixie sipping straw hanging from the side of his blonde, stubble-covered jowl. You could tell he reveled in the irony.

    “Make a wish,” he said, pulling the duct tape from my mouth.

    I really couldn’t help it. My first thought was gin, but then I figured I should probably plead for my life. A plead isn’t a wish, though, and I knew he’d be quick to catch onto that. Even if I wished to continue living, he’d feel overly empowered with the ability to grant or deny me a wish so buoyant.

    “A wish?” I asked.

    “Make a wish,” he repeated calmly.

    I tried to point up to a bookshelf with the bottle of gin on top of it, but my fishing-wire bound hands denied me that opportunity. The pain that resonated though my body reminded me that the cowboy in the room did not make good on his promise of a painless stay.

    “I wish I could have a shot of that gin you have on the shelf there,” I said, nodding up toward the translucent bottle.

    “Gin? You want a shot of gin?” he asked, seemingly disappointed in my request.

    “Yes. The Hendrick’s,” I said.

    “Gin?” he repeated. “Huh. Alright, I s’pose. I’ll grant you your wish.”

    The truth was there wasn’t much else to ask for. I was young, but I was also about to die. At that point, I knew a shot of gin would’ve been the best damn shot I’d ever had in my life. Better than any shot I had in college, better than any shot I could’ve had if I were to go on living.

    Carefully, the cowboy poured the Hendrick’s into a nearby porcelain shot glass. After his delicate top off, he crouched down beside me, helped sit me up on the floor, and held the shot in front of me.

    “This is going to be the best shot you’ve ever had,” he said, directing his oversized pupils into mine, allowing me my first glimpse into his dark brown eyes.

    I opened my mouth, the cowboy did me a favor, and I felt the heat travel down my throat. I’d always thought my favorite shot would be my final one, but I was still surprised. It was better than my first ice cream cone, my first slice of pizza, even my first kiss. My taste buds burned and my mind cleared, as if all of my lifelong burdens followed the shot into a voided existence that’d never hear from me again.

    After the cowboy pulled his “El Paso” stamped shot glass from my mouth, with one swing of his thick, tanned forearm, a black-handled, 10-inch meat cleaver made it’s way back in.

    0 Not allowed! Not allowed!
    Last edited by H78; 05-15-2008 at 02:42 PM.
    FrighT MasteR : in all seriousness, i really do think he's a little slow in the head

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