story: What Would You Like?

What Would You Like?
By Martin Heavisides - martinheavisides@sympatico.ca

=====
Arsenic? cyanide? please! those are so late Renaissance, we've made advances in poisons since then that are not to be believed (and need- less to say—since you come recommended—not to be spoken of outside the trade). Fast acting, slow acting, we like to leave that up to the client. The key feature we pride ourselves on is undetectability. (We're helped somewhat by the general indiscriminate mixing of toxins into our food, water and air. I remember a film years ago where police tracked a murder victim's movements in the 48 hours before her death by area-specific pollutants in her body. They'd have a harder time doing that now, what with generalization and overlap of toxic fields. Still forensic science is a wonderful thing. Keeps us on our toes, staying that extra little step or two ahead.)

None of my concern whether it's business or personal, but those two categories embrace most of our clientele. People think the chief means of advancement in the corporate jungle are backbiting, infighting, verbal undercutting and snide insinuation. All those have their place and so too, if you're discreet about it, does a small dose in a main rival's coffee or third martini at lunch. If you know what you're putting it in we can often match flavours between poison and comestible.

My own marriage is happy, three lovely children, discreet mistress for when the wife's too tired, but not everyone's so fortunate and I think you'll agree with me, the divorce rate's a scandal and a shame.

Something more . . . general? Ahh! I get your drift. Well if you're going that way I'd recommend chemical nerve agents and such, we do keep biological agents but don't recommend their use unless you have a well-grounded strategy for containment. Well . . . if you insist, we do have this brochure outlining our selection in viruses and bacilli. The black plague? Really sir, if you don't mind my saying, that's so 1348. This is the 21st century.
=====

C 2005 Martin Heavisides
Bio: Martin Heavisides has published in Studies in Contemporary Satire, Canadian Forum, Jeremiad, Black Cat Review among others, online at Mad Hatter's Review, the beat, monkeybicycle, and he has a story upcoming in The Landing.