Poison

Five forty-five.

He groaned looking at the digital display on his I-Phone, gulping down his third coffee of the evening. She had asked him to arrive at the rather small coffee shop at five pm sharp. And had made him wait for the better part of an hour. Probably more. The audacity of the bitch. He loosened his necktie and undid the top two buttons of his ironed white shirt. No wonder she had chosen such a tawdry place for a meet-up. She wanted to make him uncomfortable, and he hated that she was succeeding.

He had just returned from a high-profile meeting, successfully negotiating a deal that would definitely put his name on the ‘promotions’ list. He should have been celebrating, but one incident had put a dampener on things. This should not have escalated as much as it had, and he was banking on his conflict negotiation skills to put this matter to bed, once and for all.

It all started a couple of days ago during a company party.

He had faint memories of the evening. Probably due to drinking a wee bit too much. He remembered dancing with her, remembered taking her to his place, remembered waking up beside her the next morning. He had assumed her sleeping, but a bump on her forehead and pieces of a flower vase at the foot of the bed suggested something else, something more sinister, something that he immediately began regretting.

This is what he told her when she came to her senses, shouting and accusing in between sobs.

Of course he remembered her voices from the night before – the pleading for mercy, the screaming, the attempted fightback that he had subdued with the help of the flower vase that lied shattered on the ground, its broken frame symbolic of her pride.

He attempted to plead his innocence, blaming the alcohol, the environment, everything but himself. But he could see that his words were having no effect on her. She had stopped crying and had probably entered a catatonic state, irresponsive to anything he said or did. He knew that if he didn’t manage to get himself out of it, he could wave his career good-bye. Ach! Forget about career, this could very well be the ruining of his life.

So, he tried to make a last-ditched effort, a proverbial Hail Mary pass. He offered her money; an amount so huge she would never have earned it slogging off nine-to-five. The offer elicited no response and he nearly gave up hope. His mind nearly began thinking of ways in which he could kill her and dispose off her corpse. Nearly.

“Meet me at Corr’s Coffee at five pm sharp in two days.” She hadn’t waited for a reply, simply walking out of his house.

It took him a good couple of minutes to fully process the response. He wasn’t sure whether it was a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. He hoped to meet her in the office again and give her the cheque then and there. But he never got an opportunity. She hadn’t bothered coming to office for the past two days.

The two days had been hard on his mind. For some reason, he had started doubting whether the meeting was a ploy to kill him. It wasn’t a possibility he could dismiss, despite there being no tell-tale signs behind the same, although the choice of meeting place was suspiciously specific. He had avoided going outside, wary of being stabbed at every corner. Even now, his eyes were on every waiter and customer that got within striking distance.

His thoughts were broken up by her arrival. She was wearing a formal attire, much similar to his own, perhaps to give the impression of a professional meeting.

“With all due respect, I want to apologise once again –”

“I’d rather you not.” She cut him short, taking a seat opposite him. “With all due respect.”

“I know that this cheque in no way absolves me of what I –” He stopped, seeing that his visitor’s eyes were looking everywhere but at him.

“Excuse me!” She called to a barista. “Two lattes please.”

“No thanks, umm… I am dialing down on caffeine.”

“I insist.”

Something in the way she said those words froze him. Before he could think of any other excuse, the barista had walked away with her order.

He took out the cheque, cleared his throat and slid the piece of paper towards her. He had already been interrupted twice and didn’t believe in the saying “Third time’s the charm”. She picked up the cheque, took a look at the amount and put it back on the table. Was she going to keep it or not? Was she angling for more? More of the money or… He couldn’t tell. He usually could make an educated guess, but this situation was out of his expertise and he knew that. If she had any concerns, she would speak, he told himself.

From his previous three coffee orders, he estimated that he had about ten more minutes to think of a way of avoiding her coffee. He still hadn’t eliminated the possibility of her making an attempt at his life, and since she hadn’t tried

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using blunt force trauma, a less violent way of killing could very well be on the cards. He racked his brains for a way out, and eventually settled on a plan that would both make him look polite as well as avoid getting white foam on his mouth.

The barista came back holding a tray in his hand, two small cups of latte on top. One of them was tenderly picked and was about to be placed on his side of the table when he intercepted it in mid-air and pushed it towards his companion, a plastic smile wrapped around his lips.

She did well to hide her surprise, but a momentary widening of the pupil was all the confirmation he needed. He took the other cup from the tray and drank almost all of it in one big gulp. “Won’t you?” he asked with a grin, pointing the palm of his hand to her untouched cup.

His smile vanished as she picked up her cup and took a sip.

“I am surprised that you thought I was going to poison you or something.”

He mumbled what sounded like “Of course not,” but he wasn’t sure whether his voice was loud enough to be heard at the other end of the table.

“Don’t mistake me. I am not surprised at your thought, just at the fact that you can still think. Symptoms usually start showing in the first half-hour. The poison was in the coffee you drank while waiting for me. I hope that didn’t cause you much inconvenience.”

He didn’t wait to hear the rest of her monologue. In a matter of seconds, he had risen up from his seat and made a beeline for the exit, knocking down the table in the process, two cups and a cheque lying in its wake. There weren’t a lot of things he would have loved to do than to teach her a lesson, but staying alive was definitely one of those things. And staying alive meant reaching a hospital as fast as he could.

He put the key in the ignition, revving up the engine of his Benz. The car instantly came to life and throttled ahead, guided by his foot on the clutch. Metres ahead, the signal turned to red. He cussed under his breath and pressed the accelerator full force as the car lurched forward, its speedometer going up as fast as its driver’s blood pressure.

But the car never broke the signal.

A massive ball of flame now stood where the car had been, the resulting explosion capturing the attention of everyone in vicinity. For about three seconds following the explosion, there was a pin-drop silence. Pandemonium began only after debris started falling down like rain from hell; burnt pieces of metal, rubber and plastic, and, yes, flesh.

She got up from her seat, picked up the cheque and casually strolled to the site of crime. Throwing away the cheque in the smouldering flame of her oppressor – an oppressor who had now become a victim – she walked away.

She had reached Corr’s Coffee ten minutes before five. She had seen him park his car. She had seen him enter the coffee house and wait impatiently. She had then parked her own car adjacent to his and planted the bomb she had bought after a dedicated three-hour search on dark web.

Within minutes, there were police squad cars and fire brigades at work, trying to contain the fire, help the injured and find whatever fragments remained of the dead body. Rumours of a terrorist attack and the possibility of a second blast spread through word-of-mouth like a wildfire. Somewhere nearby, a cop could be heard calling for more backup on his radio.

Most of the people in the vicinity of the blast had remained largely unaffected. Yet, there were many who suffered injuries; their bodies covered with blood, sweat and tears, and, yes, flesh. They would never completely recover from this freak accident, waking up in the middle of the night, ruining their sleep and that of their loved ones, much akin to the way she had been ruining her sleep for the past two days. But not today. Today, she would sleep soundly.

     There was never any poison; only the fear of one. The fear that blinded him so utterly and completely that he failed to see things clearly. With a clear head, he might have noticed that he had had no symptoms after consuming the ‘poison’. Might have noticed the faint tick-ticking sound coming from under his car. Might even have noticed that the real poison lay inside the person sitting in front of him.

     Poison of the drink may or may not kill a man. Poison of the drink can be tamed. Poison of the drink can be prepared against. But poison of the mind doesn’t dissipate until it gets what it wants. No amount of planning, no antidote, can stop its path of destruction.

     Two days ago, he planted the poison in her mind. Today, that poison killed its creator. Frankenstein was dead. The monster still roamed, looking for creatures similar to its creator, to right the wrongs that nobody else could.