One of the things I want to do this year is read more. And I have been doing so. But, all this reading more is making me want to write more. So, I did so. It's just a short story, and I don't even know if anyone will read it, but I happen to actually like it, which is a nice change.

- - -

Poison Theory
By Sarah McCarthy

I could see the concern in his expression as soon as he tilted the neatly-cut glass back to down the last of his whiskey, and saw the soggy white substance - not quite dissolved - chase it down. Much slower than the liquid, but fast enough for him to quickly snap the glass back onto a horizontal axis.

“What is that?” He asked, squinting one eye into the bottom of his glass and sweeping a finger around inside it, coming away with a tiny gob of what looked like wet plaster. But of course, we both knew that was the one thing it wasn’t. The plaster part, anyway -- it did certainly appear to be wet, though

I shrugged, feet up on the desk, crossed at the ankles, and took a sip of my own drink. It hadn’t registered that perhaps I should check my own.

He looked up at me sharply, apparently shocked that I hadn’t rushed to his side, cooing and asking ‘who’s a big boy?’. The white substance was now evenly smeared over the pads of his thumb and forefinger, from him checking the consistency. I’m not sure what he’d been expecting to gage from that. Soft, fine, grainy -- anyone could see that just from looking at it. It certainly wasn’t Camembert.

“How can you be so nonchalant? Someone dosed me… or - or poisoned--”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” I shot back, successfully bringing the curtain down on his amateur production. “You don’t know that.”

This, apparently, didn’t impress him at all.

“Don’t… don’t know that?” He was even beginning to stutter. He held up his finger, with traces of whatever was in the bottom of his glass barely even visible now. “How much more evidence do I need?"

“Evidence?” I repeated, raising my eyebrows then lowering them back instantly into a frown. “You’re getting serious. Me no likey.”

I picked up a deck of cards (luckily within reach, since the blood had drained from my feet and it was much easier to just keep them crossed on the edge of the desk than face the wave of pins and needles) and began shuffling, hoping to create a diversion from the suddenly sapped atmosphere. I dealt us two each.

“It’s nothing.” I insisted, lifting the edge of my two cards to peer underneath. Then, because I knew he’d either argue with that, or yell at me, or both, I added; “Do you feel any different?”

He lifted one eyebrow at me, something which was normally my specialty. “You mean, do I feel high? Or do I feel like I’m about to roll my eyes back into my head and keel over?”

“Either.” I let the statement contort my facial features in an appropriately condescending fashion.

“Neither.” He repeated after a moment, defeated, as if the fact that he might NOT die any minute was a disappointment to him. “But what about the --”

“Probably just soap residue that was already on the glass. Will you drop it?” I said as I dealt the flop. Three cards - ace, king (both hearts) and a six of diamonds. A good bunch. I say good in the general sense of the word because, sitting on a three and a seven - spades and diamonds - they weren’t actually good for me at all.

When I looked up again, he seemed to have considered and partially accepted my half-assed guess as an explanation, but he still hadn’t looked at his cards. I saw that his fingers had drifted across his lap to his wrist, where he was idiotically trying to check his pulse. Again, I couldn’t tell what he expected to conclude, aside from the fact that the matter was definitely not dropped.

“I’m not gonna indulge you.” I said, sure he must have felt my eyes digging holes in him -- holes he wasn’t already digging himself from the face-reddening concentration he seemed to be putting into his pulse-taking. “You’re being paranoid.

“Paranoid?” His head snapped back up again. “Paranoid is…” He took a moment, in order to truly define what ‘paranoid is’. “Paranoid is checking the back of your neck each morning for a tracking device, or being constantly afraid that the men in the white coats and butterfly nets are coming to get you --”

“To be fair,” I interrupted. “If you’re already doing the first thing, I’m not sure that second one is avoidable

“Paranoid is NOT,” he ignored my quip. “being concerned about a powdery substance in the bottom of a whiskey glass.” He poked at it again with his finger.

I shrugged again, and laid down the Turn. Seven of clubs. Good, at least now I had something, even if it was only a pair of sevens. Not that it would matter -- I seemed to be the only one really playing, given that I was still the only one who’d looked at my cards.

Not that anyone else should be looking at my cards, but that’s not what I meant.

“What other explanations are there?” He continued, and I’m sure I felt a nerve flinch in annoyance. “It’s either a drug, or a poison.”

“Or soap powder.” I countered.

“ Kind of unlikely…”

“You’re not feeling any effects!” I almost shouted, impatience knocking.

“That doesn’t matter.” He insisted, now seeming hell-bent on his poison theory being right, regardless of what it meant for him. “Whatever it was had been dissolved, therefore diluted. It might take longer to kick in.”

I cocked an eyebrow, not sure if that was how it worked. “You’re gonna wait with baited breath to see whether you cough up blood or start seeing magical Liopleurodons?”

“Sure.” He insisted, although he was already beginning to fidget with the top button of his shirt. “My patience is pretty good, actually.”

“Right.” I said, and dealt the last card - the River. I’ll never understand why they call it that. “You did a lot of mail-order when you were a kid.”

“Something like that.”

I sighed, crucifying my poker face as I realized the last card I’d laid down was a Jack - also hearts. No help there. I threw in my cards -- the international gesture for ‘I’m beat, fellas. What’s next?’. I was certain I’d lost the one-sided game, even though my opponent hadn’t touched his cards, nor looked at mine staring at him face-up from the table, almost writhing in inadequacy.

“You’re not poisoned, and you’re not drugged.” I said for what felt like the tenth time, even though I think I’d only said it once before.

“Why are you so sure?” He asked, then something seemed to come to him, like a sudden and unexpected punch in the face. He looked at me in a different sort of way… not the way one friend should look at another. “Was it you?”

“What?” I asked, not sure myself whether the question was because I didn’t understand what he was asking, or because I did.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” He asked, going from mild to accusatory in four and a half seconds. “You know because you put it in here.”

“Don’t be… are - are you…” I struggled to find a sentence which would appropriately express my outrage. “Are you accusing me of slipping you a dangerous drug?”

“Or poison.” He piped up like a school kid in class.

“Your poison theory doesn’t fit!” I sighed, exasperated.

“So it is drugs.” It was like he was asking me directly now, rather than for my opinion. He was asking for the answers he knew - thought he knew - I had. He pretty much had me convicted.

“Look, I don’t always rinse the glasses out properly. Sometimes soap scum builds up. That’s it.” I said for the third time. “Let me know if you start seeing pretty colors, otherwise drop it.

There was a short pause, then he stood up and took his jacket off the back of the chair, shrugging it on. He was back to mild again, and just as quick.

“I’m going home.” He said. I raised an eyebrow.

“You’re convinced that you’ve got slow-acting drugs coursing through your bloodstream and you’re gonna drive?” I asked, wondering whether his concerns had been as bad as he’d made out at all.

“I’ll take the bus.” He said, proving that indeed they had been.

I didn’t say anything as he left, just drained my own glass and lowered my legs off the desk. My feet started to prickle and get hot as gravity righted the blood flow.

I leaned across the desk, and cautiously - even though I knew I was alone - lifted the corner of his cards which still lay untouched.

Queen and Ten, both hearts.

I looked at the cards laid out on the table, quickly realizing that he had the one hand which had eluded me - and many other card players - all my life: a straight flush, ace high. Also known as a Royal Flush. And he didn’t even know it. The probability of getting one of those was less than 0.01 out of a hundred. After a few moments, I realized my mouth was open, and shut it, sitting back in my chair.

I’d been surprised at how easily paranoia had given way to acceptance. Maybe he just truly didn’t want to believe he’d been slipped something - especially not by his best friend.

Even stranger, I’d never said that I hadn’t.