A Beautiful Poison

by Lydia Kang

When your most common companions were the four walls of a room, not much else mattered.

“You worry too much.” “It’s what I do best,”

Jasper felt like he’d rather be back in the morgue, where the bodies weren’t quite so rude.

Allene never knew that murder could make Monday mornings so wonderful.

But a funeral reminds you to be alive, doesn’t it? It slaps you across the face and points out that there’s still warm blood doing a jig in your veins.”

Nature was fierce in her efforts to cover the dead with life, rooting them down without mercy and preventing them from haunting the living.

there was nothing more heartbreaking than seeing someone else shattering in front of you.

“So what’s your favorite molecule?” Allene countered. “One three seven trimethylxanthine.” Allene nodded in acknowledgment. Jasper waited for the punch line, but neither said a word. The parts of the formula were familiar to him, but Allene had always outshone him in her pure love of the subject. “What is it?” Jasper finally asked. They both looked at him like he was a simpleton. Allene whispered, “Caffeine. The man likes his coffee.”

Somewhere in the world at that moment, there was a birth, a death, a sunrise, and a sunset. There was despair, and a burst of laughter, a promise broken, and a vow made.