Response to Fear Prompt

Maybe it was the vibe from the restaurant. Maybe the dose was two high, three postage stamped sized squares marked with colorful cartoon illustrations. The restaurant had been a saloon in the end of the 19th century. The owner had Shanghaied countless patrons and murdered nearly a hundred others, at least according the accounts of the day once his dark operation had been brought to light. The place was equipped in those days with a trap door. The drunken patrons would wake to find themselves forced into service on ships headed for the far east.
Whatever the cause, Tom knew the moment the table began to melt and morph into a demonic face that he was in for a tumultuous trip. His dinner companion that night was a friend of many years, close and trusted. While his companion remained unchanged in physcial form Tom was certain it wasn't Robert he was dining with anymore. His friend was saying normal concerned friend things, "Are you ok?" Tom however, heard not just the words, but layer upon layer of subtext. "Are you ok?" inocuous though it seemed on the surface, really meant, "I've got you now bastard, whatever you do the rest of your days your soul is mine."
Perhaps it was just Robert's appearance, pale skinned, black haired, sinister goatee. No matter how hard he tried to keep the thoughts from rushing in he couldn't. Robert wasn't Robert, he was a demonic power speaking through Robert. Not the devil as Robert would joke later, Tom was a student of estoteric theology after all, and not quiet proud enough to believe that the Devil himself would bother with someone as inconsequencial as Tom. It was definitely a dark power though. Tom had knocked on doors that he shouldn't have, and now Tom would have to pay the price. As much as his rational mind tried to dismiss it in later days it was always there in the back of his mind, he was one of the damned. He was a member of the living dead, no matter what good he tried to do in life, it was futile, he'd traded his soul for three hits of blotter acid a friend picked up in Berkeley. Unlike Faust he didn't even get any cool powers out of the deal, just momentary glimpse into the otherside, and not the part he'd hoped for.

Ode To Tomatoes

Pablo Neruda

Ode To Tomatoes

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.