A Bitterness in Sweet Sugar
A short horror by Matthew Tonks
His frail, bony fingers wrap around the half-full glass, lifting it to his lips as he takes a sip of the whisky. He lets out a sharp hiss as he falls back in the seat, his exhausted body slowly becoming a prison. He stares wearily out over the city he has called home, with eyes blinded by age and a life lived far longer than it should’ve been.
He swallows and clenches his aching jaw, letting out a grunt as he pushes a fist into his lips, muffling a cough that quickly spirals out of control. A thick wad of phlegm tears loose and chokes him.
He gasps, his eyes widening, and for a moment his world goes blank. Then he starts coughing violently, forcing the phlegm up and out, spitting it across his open hand, its green mucus soaked in dark crimson.
He breathes, each breath laboured and strained, his heartbeat thumping loudly in the back of his skull.
Stars flicker before him—scattered patches of white, a symphony of colours. He drags in another breath and falls back again, his lips trembling as his eyes fall wearily to the floor.
Her hand rests on his, holding it softly.
He looks up at her, tears running down his cheeks. Her face is filled with sorrow.
“I—I—I’m so sorry,” he mutters as his vision swims, his eyes falling back to the floor, a sea of sweat pouring down over his pale face. His mind floods with memories he can’t recall as his own—laughter from decades gone, mistakes that were once someone else’s, now his.
He forces an uneasy gaze back to her.
“Dear Salvador, what are you ever sorry for?” she asks.
“T—The choices I made—even if I don’t remember them.” He stammers as he takes a breath, a faint, weary smile trembling across his lips. “They—they warn you about getting old, but they never tell you about this—how your memories disappear and slowly get replaced by someone else’s, that’s when it all becomes a nightmare.”
She tightens her grip on his hand.
“Like you, my choices were my own,” she says softly. “I knew who you were the moment I stepped into your world, and I knew what that would eventually make of me. Just like you do now, looking back through innocent eyes that can no longer remember the things your soul still carries.”
He sobs, then coughs again. He hisses, swallows, the taste of his own blood on his tongue, and with a grimace, he downs the rest of his glass and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing red across his cheek. He staggers a breath and shakes his head.
“I—I—I should’ve been better, I c—”
She gently squeezes his hand and offers a comforting smile. “There was no one else you could’ve been but you. Every step led you here.”
“W—What’s here for an old bitter fool like me?”
“The end, the last true gift anyone can be given.”
“I don’t see death as a gift, it’s an insult, one I’m not ready for, nor do I want it!”
“For something new to come, something old has to fall.”
He stammers a broken breath, “I—I, I’m scared of what’s waiting for me on the other side, w—what punishments will be my fate.”
“Fate doesn’t punish, humans do.”
He laughs gruffly, reaching out and placing a hand on hers.
“W—W—Will you stay with me, so I’m not alone?”
“You’re never alone, Salvador. That’s why I’m here, so you know that,” she says.
A smile trembles on his lips. “I—I—I don’t know how I can thank you—after everything I did.”
Her smile falls, the shadows shift, and she pulls her hand away from his.
“I’m not here to hold your hand while you die. I’m here to show you who you are.”
“W—What, what do you mean, w—w—” he gasps, takes a desperate breath—and the world implodes with it.
Then a million sets of eyes open up like a sea of screens before him, showing him glimpses into other worlds, where other versions of him are sitting in the same seat, at the same window, at the same time, their breaths all as one.
“W—W—What is this? W—W—What’s happening?”
“This is you not dying alone, for who better to die with than yourself, Salvador?” she says with a devilish grin, as the heartbeat that was thumping moments ago in the back of his skull beats its last beat.
Did this one sink its teeth into you?
Then feed it. Share it. Let it loose on someone else.
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