Michael Bach

No more appeasement.

It was saying, go now.

So I started packing up.

So now it's dark and I'm on my way out.

I go through the living room and the man, the husband, he's slumped down in my chair and his eyes are real glassy.

He's staring but his eyes are fixed and it was like his face was in two parts suddenly.

Everything above his nose was like dark gray, and everything below was dark red.

Like some kind of blood burst or something, some medical attack, I don't know.

And he was holding a stone cup in one hand.

I didn't even notice.

You know, suddenly it was like when you're in a fun house at Halloween and you see some display that's kind of hideous and you keep moving.

You don't even let it register.

All I had left was to get my phone from my bedroom and my pills from the bathroom.

I went right past them.

And I'm moving very fast because this is all escalating faster and faster.

The little cabinet above the sink was open, and now suddenly there was this brown bottle on the shelf next to my pills.

Real small, with a cork in it.

This old, old label that was just barely still on there.

And it had a snake head drawn on it.

And the word murk.