Mar 8, 2018

Dinner







“So, how was school?” Gezex's father asked him as he piled his plate with some more chicken from the bowl.

“Poisoning, dad. Professor Black gave a pretty interesting lecture. There was a practical demonstration where he poisoned one student from the class.”

“Ah, Black. Same old tricks, that old coot. What did he use for the demonstration? Was it cobra venom or Snakeroot again? That one was his favorite.”

“He did not specify. Said it was our homework assignment to figure out the poison from the symptoms.”

The father smiled as he chomped down on a piece of chicken. “Not going to help you then. Your mother was always the better poisoner of us two. You can ask her for clues, but I don’t think she’d want you to cheat on an assignment.”

“I think I can figure it out on my own from my books and literature I have read. Strange symptoms. Really unique.”

“Oh, yeah? Tell me some of the symptoms, maybe I can figure it out too.”

“The tears are the first indication. It looks like your eyes are bleeding, but it fact, it’s simple tears tinged with blood. The mark does not feel anything wrong with him, but those seeing him are fazed at sight.” Gezex said and poured some water into his glass.

“Then comes the sweat,” he continued. “It starts pouring in from the mark’s skull first. Causes dehydration in some and makes the tears appear even redder. There is confusion, bewilderment, and hallucinations in most cases.”

“Reminds me of the college parties back in my day,” the father said. He looked around the table for something more to eat. There was an untouched bowl of sauteed broccoli with diced potatoes lying close to Gezex. He motioned the boy to pass the bowl.

“The professor also said that the cure for the poison was available in common household items and that if we looked in our kitchen, we’d be able to find a way to neutralize the poison.”
“Hah, classic old trick. Now, listen G, you can’t really find a cure for a poison unless you know what the poison is, am I right? Do you get what I am trying to say?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Gezex said as he toyed with the food on his plate with a fork. “I have just been wondering, dad. Why did Professor Black choose me for the demonstration? I have always been regular…”

“Wait, what the fuck? He chose you for the poison demonstration? Did he give you an antidote?” Panic rose in the father’s voice. He usually did not swear around the kid, but this sudden revelation brought out a torrent of insults out of his mouth, and if Professor Black had been there, the father would have strangulated the man with his own bare hands.

"Wife!” he yelled for the Gezex ’s mother. “Wife! Come here, quick!”

The boy’s mother came in the hall from the kitchen. She was still wearing her apron. She wiped her hands dry with a towel. “What happened, husband? Is everything ok? Was there something wrong with the food?”

“No!” he raged, “everything is not ok! Did you know that our son got poisoned at the school today and he was not even been given the antidote? Whatever was given to him is still in his system.”

“Was it Professor Black?” the mother asked with a frown on her face. “That one has always had a thing for our family.”

“I am going to call that son of a bitch and give him a piece of my mind. What was he thinking poisoning our son like this.”

“Just hold your horses, husband. We need to focus on the issue right here and right now. Calling the professor can wait for a while.”

She looked at her son. “What was the poison? He must have gloated about the symptoms.”
“Blood tinged tears, sweat, hallucinations, dehydration.” Gezex ticked off the symptoms like a parrot.

“Oh boy,” a scowl swam over the mother’s face like a shark swims towards her prey. “That does not sound nice at all. Did he talk about the cure? Any clues?”

Gezex felt the mild panic slowly uncurl in his stomach like a snake waking up from its slumber.

“He...he said household ingredients can be used for making the cure.”

"Just what I had feared.” The mother pulled out a chair from the table and sat down with a thump. She sighed, “Now look little G, the symptoms go much deeper than this. You will slowly start to lose all sensation in the extremities of your body. You won’t be able to use your smartphone or your gaming console. You will start to get irritated by darkness, and you will have to stay in the light just to feel at ease. There are other symptoms that I can’t even tell you right now because I don’t want to scare you too much.”

"But, mom, he said there was a cure.”

“Oh damnation,” the father spoke up, “I am calling the professor, and I am going to wring the cure out of him if I have to.”
“Husband,” the wife put her hand over his hand that held the phone. Her eyes told him to shut the fuck up, and such was the intensity of the gaze that he was calmed at once.

“Gez, look at me.” His mother looked around the table and saw the bowl of broccoli and potatoes. “First thing you need to do is eat this. This will stop the poison from reaching your heart. After that, I will cook something for you that will work to neutralize the poison in your body.”

The boy gave a disgusted look to the bowl of vegetables in front of him.

“I think I can see a red tear in the corner of your eye.”

He pounced on the vegetables like a hungry tiger.

“It’s going to take months to get the poison out of your body, and you better eat everything I give to you.”

“Mmmff,” he managed to nod between mouthfuls of broccoli.

---

I have always wanted to write something around a dinner table.




More stories coming up.

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