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The Elixir
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 09:32AM 
When he ripped the skin of the orange away, juice sprayed in tiny little droplets over my arm's flesh. I love the smell of the fresh break, but I had a paper cut that seethed under the citric acid.
"How long have you been doing this?" I asked as I looked around and noticed nothing under the ordinary in the old white washed kitchen. The Formica counter had aged, yellowing glue along the seams and the tiles were randomly cracked. I felt a chill of discomfort as I realized I was alone in this man's house, who as far as I knew, was a stranger.
"What? You mean makin' mixes?"
"Yeah"
"Oh I've been doing this as long as I can remember...my grandmother was a tribe leader and a bit of a modern day medicine woman...I used to go gather ingredients for her when I was little - so you see its in the blood."
He squeezed a drop of lavender colored water into the dark blue glass bottle that now sat full of fresh squeezed orange juice.
I couldn't help but stare around the house more, scanning. There was a Nascar calendar, an oiled frying pan sitting on the stove-top and a crumb-ladened toaster. I guess I was looking for proof of success or something extraordinary, but I wasn't seeing it. Yet I'm not sure what it would look like if I did see it.
He peeled open a small crinkled and creased brown envelope with the words 'DRAGON'S BLOOD' scribbled on it. He tapped out a ground-up red powder into a bottle.
"Why don't you charge?"
He set his black eyes directly on me - as though he had now come to see clearly what my point was, "It is not about profit, its about human exchange and I would receive no true payment, if I charged." His slicing gaze returned to the bottle indignantly.
My cheeks flushed with embarrassment. I must have come across as so ungrateful, but I was like a relentless child and my curiosity got the better of me, "What do you mean real payment?"
"I get paid with what you people call Karma, I get paid by the natural forces of intention. Now if you're done with the inquisition, I need to explain exactly how this is going to work. That is if you're still interested."
"Yeah I'm ready."
"You're not going to drink this until you're about to go to sleep. Once you drink it you aren't going to experience any immediate reactions short of the infusion of the liquid's properties into your blood stream...but its not love potion #9...its not like some tv movie, the effect will be delayed. So go to sleep. Make sure you go straight to sleep - if you can't sleep - stay in complete state of meditative rest - do not consume ANYTHING, absolutely nothing!..."
"Not even water?" I asked stupidly, still losing faith in the hope.
He shook his head in complete dismay.
"In the morning when you wake up, you will have a heightened sense of clarity, everything will appear new and on a different dimension. Your sense of focus will be unlike any other moment in your life. Because of this, you cannot leave your house for twelve hours...so have anything you may need there. You will then sit and ask yourself the questions you have written out on this paper for me. Obviously, I will not be the one to answer them. All of your false pretenses will be demolished and you will know what the RIGHT answers are. Once you obtain your answers you may eat and drink, but still do not go out. SO do you have any questions?"
"Does it taste bad?"
"It has a bit of an edge to it...like stale orange juice, but its doable."
Reader Comments (5)
It sounds wonderful to me
Whoa.
What were the questions?! How will she know she has the right answers? And where can I find this guy?!?!
You trying to keep us on edge?
:D
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2008/05/focussed-on-death-3ww.html
...whadda storee... and the drawing was great... having worked w/herbs and potions really liked the concept of the story... loved they mystery threaded thru the storee... that she would answer the questions in this heightened state... but not to leave for 12 hours.. interesting...
such a cool story! who is the girl???
<3