The Bloody Potion – A Short Story

~~~ The Bloody Potion ~~~

“The sick and dying – it was they who despised the body and the earth, and invented the heavenly world, and the redeeming drops of blood; but even those sweet and dismal poisons they borrowed from the body and the earth!.”

“Sir, Sir, SIIIIR!!” The waiter was shouting with a frustrated tone.

“Huh?” Omar raised his head and his left hand in a sudden movement. His right grip still firmly holding the book. His hand hit the coffee pot and the waiter looked at him in fake concern.

“So sorry sir, did I startle you?”

Omar placed the book on his chair, stood up and tried apologetically to help the waiter cleaning up the mess caused by his lack of attention.

“No I am deeply sorry myself. It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry”, repeated Omar, “sorry” .. “sorry”.

The waiter had already got help from his colleague who looked at Omar and smiled saying

“It’s ok sir, don’t worry. Please have a seat.”

She was lovely. Omar had to obey her cute smile.

“Please, let me pay for the broken pot”, offered Omar.

“Excuse me, I didn’t get that”, she said. 

He paid more attention to his accent this time and repeated in a slower rhythm

“Let me pay for the pot, please”

“Ah. No no no, don’t worry, it happens all the time. Please enjoy your coffee”, then she turned quickly and her golden hair followed her head making an orchestral musical effect, she asked her colleague who had finished picking up everything

“What did you want anyway?”

“I was asking him if he wanted more coffee”.

She then turned again, her hair followed again while the music was getting quicker. She asked Omar if he wanted more coffee. He didn’t hear her, and that’s when he noticed that the music was not coming from her perfect hair motion, it was his headphones. He removed them rapidly, forgetting that they are bluetooth and not connected physically to anywhere, so they fell on the floor making him look completely silly.

“Oh my god”, murmured the waitress.

“I am sorry. What were you saying, sorry.”

“Do you want more cooofffeeee?”. She said slowly while emphasizing stupidly on the word ‘coffee’ while looking at him in politely-coated disgust. He has seen this look before, the look of “pull yourself together and get the heck off my sight, you pathetic loser.” 

He replied briefly, “No. Thank you. Sorry”.

He knows how clumsy he is, he can’t help it. It’s just how he is. Why do people keep treating him as if it was his choice to be clumsy? As if he meant to goof up like this. He then remembered his friends’ advice: “We know you can’t help it, Omar, but you can decide to pay more attention. Stop listening to music in public places, and surely never read in public places. You’re a mess while in full focus, imagine when you’re out of it!” But how should he wait for six full hours at an airport without listening to music or reading. That’s insane! If he wanted to read while waiting in an airport and forget about his miserable life, he has the right to do so. 

“Well, screw people then.” He whispered with determination. And then he kept going “And stop apologizing for god’s sake”. He then imitated himself with a funny low voice “sorry sorry sorry”. He then looked straight at his own reflection in a far mirror. “Your weakness disgusts me”, he said with a hateful voice, and surely not a clumsy one. 

He put his headphones back, took the large book from underneath his butt after he sat on it by mistake, and continued reading.

“From their misery they sought escape, and the stars were too far for them. Then they sighed: "Would that there were heavenly paths by which to sneak into another existence and into happiness!" Then they contrived for themselves their secret ways and bloody potions!.”

Omar is in his mid-thirties. He grew up in Algeria and his family moved to the States right after his high-school. Not married with no children, living by himself in an elegantly furnished one bedroom apartment, and working as a bank clerk in Florida, his life schedule is so disciplined. He allocates time to his friends, his family, his colleagues, his readings, etc. Everything except himself. There is no time in his life assigned to himself. Is it intentional? I’d say so. He would argue with me, but I am sure of it. I can see it clearly from my narration spot up here. If you listen to his thoughts, if you feel his heart, you’d see what I see. He’s scared from himself, from his thoughts, from his feelings. Or doesn’t he like what he feel? I can’t be sure. Hate and fear are usually interchangeable, except maybe when applied to God.

He was sitting on the counter of a coffee shop / restaurant / bar / market, I have no idea what those are called, the place where you can sit in an airport and buy a magazine and some mints, then sit down for a beer, eat an egg burrito, then drink some coffee. He arrived three hours early to find out that his flight was delayed for two and a half hours. He was going to Greece to attend his childhood friend’s wedding. It is amazing how the world had become too small that two algerians who once shared a middle-school desk, one of them lives in Florida, the other lives in Australia where he met his greek wife-to-be. The wedding is held in Greece to allow both families to attend. Such a mixed-religions wedding would be less welcomed in the middle-east, especially that his fiancee’s family is jew. Oh a greek jew, that’s a mix one would look forward to meet.

Sitting on the counter always makes him feel older than he actually is. He enjoys it nevertheless. He enjoys feeling like an old man who is waiting for his own death. He imagines it and fantasizes about it. He does not fantasize about extremely ambitious successes or out-of-reach richnesses or fame. Not at all. He imagines getting so old and living in an age where no one expect anything from you. That is Omar’s happy place. A place where ambitions cease to exist. Where you owe nothing to no one, and you expect nothing from no one. A place and a time where you explicitly acknowledge what every single human is implicitly doing but does not dare to say it– which is to wait for one’s death. One’s life is mere distractions from the one and only naked truth– one’s death. Waiting for death is the only action whose absolute success is statistically guaranteed. Death would never disappoint you. It is the utmost promise keeper. Death would always –always– pay its debt.

Omar often likes to mention death while talking, it’s a mystery to me how does he still have friends. It comes up in his thoughts more often than you can imagine. One of his thoughts is wondering whether one feels the death coming? Or is it a legend? And why do we believe the dying ones when they say “we felt it coming”? Did they ever say it a few days ahead? No. They only mention it whilst it’s occurring.

“Gabrbhr jsshkh, plzx”

This came from his right. He glanced at his right wondering whether he heard something. He found two suspicious-looking gentlemen staring at him. He took his headphones off quickly and they fell again. He asked them whether they said something, while picking up his headphones and his book which fell also when he got distracted by his headphones. Both of them kept looking at him skeptically without speaking.

“Did you say something? Sorry I had my headphones on.” Omar repeated, but the gentlemen shared a look between them and then ignored him.

~~~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~~

“Was this guy spying on us?” Asked George, the younger of the two guys. He had an anxious face who didn’t fit his hammering jacked body. 

“I am not sure,” answered Manos while discreetly glancing at Omar, “Does he even speak greek? His face can definitely go for Greek.”

“So now what? What if he heard us?!” asked George whose voice was distressed. Manos was now gazing at his drink, rotating the glass in between his palms, then he stopped, his finger tips turned white due to high pressure on the glass when he said

“We cannot risk it. Not now.”

“We’re close damn it.”

“Definitely not now. We’re too close, Georgy, we cannot risk it.”

“What do you want me to do?” said George while slightly raising his tone, “What shall I do in a fucking airport?”

“But we cannot risk it. That is out of question. No one is that clumsy, he’s faking it. And he’s a bad actor. Terrible.”

“Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. But I don’t think we can do anything.” said George while faking a natural turn to give a second long look at Omar, who was browsing his phone. Though he didn’t look at ease.

“If he was listening to us. We cannot risk it. We have to kill him. We have to verify first that he knows greek.” murmured Manos in an experienced calm voice. His gray moustache added some wisdom to his words.

“What? Here? How?!”

He then started to explain his improvised plan. First, George orders a glass of red wine, then he shall leave and go wait in the restroom. Then Manos will initiate a conversation with Omar to check if he could understand them. If he found out that he could indeed, he’ll text him the confirmation, and he’ll fake an accident where he’d spill the wine glass on Omar’s pants. Omar would then go to the restroom to try to clean the stain. Manos shall ensure that Omar goes to the same restroom where George is waiting. That’s the only accessible place without surveillance cameras. In the restroom, it’s up to george to drag Omar to a stall and kill him inside it.

“You’d have to be extremely quiet, Georgy. They should only discover the body after everything is done. After it’s over, it wouldn’t matter when they see the cameras and discover that you entered the restroom before him. We will be away already.” he told him in a strong tone.

“I can’t believe I am doing this.” replied George while shaking his head, then shouted to the far waitress “Hello .. krasi pleaz”. 

The waitress came over and asked him politely to repeat.

“I no .. uhhh .. vino .. no no .. wino?” he said in a broken spanish/english while Manos was silently laughing at him.

“Do you mean wine, sir?” while pointing to a red wine bottle. He nodded and Manos confirmed.

~~~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~~

“I am going to Greece.” answered Omar when Manos asked him about his destination. Manos immediately coughed and hit the wine glass. Omar stood up abruptly spilling the coffee on Manos’ pants. He apologized repetitively –it’s ironic I know, he’s pathetic– but Manos quickly took charge of the situation.

“It’s ok, bro. We should clean this shit.” Then he led the way to the restroom.

~~~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~~

Men were screaming and storming out of the restroom. Police and airport security were rushing to the scene. George has failed to keep the quiet part of the plan. Omar was lying on the restroom’s floor, blood was pouring out of the top of his head, the paramedics took him rapidly to the medical center. He had been hit fatally on the head. The doctor knew it when she inspected the wound, all the metrics indicated to the inevitable ending.

“I…” Omar tried to speak.

“Please sir, don’t try to move” he was told by the nurse, but he resisted.

“Didn’t …,” he said in a weak voice

“Sir. Please” Insisted the nurse

“Did .. not .. see .. it .. coming,” he murmured the words sporadically while having trouble breathing.

“Didn’t see what?” asked the nurse with a tearful voice while wiping the blood that started to drool out of his mouth. 

He briefly whispered his last word, “Death.”

~~~ The End ~~~

~ NY, USA ~ 07/09/2017

* The book parts were copied from “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Photo © http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/10/31/blood-bag-energy-drink/