Adam took a long swig of the potion and scowled. He’d changed the combination of herbs which had only served to emphasis the pungent taste. He had no choice but to drink it as it helped him summon the dead. That’s what he did for a living – summon the dead for the recently bereaved who wanted to know the whereabouts of the money or, on one memorable occasion, the backdoor key.
From there he’d diversified into the more lucrative business of summoning the spirits of the yet to be dead. He’d quickly discovered that people would pay any amount or do anything to find out the where, when and how of their death. Once they knew, they’d do anything to avoid meeting the Grim Reaper but always failed to postpone the meeting.
Desperation had forced him to change the potion, things had been going wrong, he could no longer control whether he was calling the spirits of the already or soon-to-be dead. His customers were angry and refusing to pay; he was facing ruin.
Taking one final sip, he lit the candle that would complete his pentagram and prayed for a solution to his problems. Sitting cross-legged in the center of the pentagram, his palms sweating, heart thumping he recited the summoning spell, over and over. After he heard the crack and flash of lighting that indicated the presence of a spirit he opened his eyes to the one spirit he wasn’t expecting to see – his own.
Dorcas Wilson has published poems in a couple of anthologies, as well as articles in his hometown magazine, “The Black Bitch,” in Linlithgow, Scotland. He is also a long-term member of the Edinburgh Writers’ Club, where he first discovered flash fiction.
Great piece, Dorcas. Congratukations, ma’am. anne stenhouse