Dastardly

by Lorraine Ray

A scorpion got me. A little articulated agony whipped its tail out and jabbed me in the hand. Oh, the fucking irony. At least I put horror at the end of my life. Consistency. It’s the telling detail that makes the fucking story great. Plenty of details in this. Shadows on the rocks, clouds skimming by. And me. Little old me.

  A tear. A tear is trickling down my damn cheek. I haven’t cried since I was five years old. Fucking idiot. Dip-shit cry-baby. Crying is not going to walk me out of here. If I can get back to my car I will live. If I stop here I’ll die. Get a move on, bro.

  Lots of good writing material here. Material that is lost forever. Down the drain with the author. Extinguishing forever with the artist.

  Nobody dies from a scorpion sting. I did some research on that once for a dumb book of mine years ago and again recently. What was that piece of crap called? Oh yeah, Dance with Death. A fucking lousy book that one was. Sheesh! Lousier than most of my lousy books and that was saying a lot. I tried to have a character die from a scorpion sting, but I did my research and found out it wouldn’t kill anyone, sure I did that a couple of weeks ago again. Can’t remember anything I looked up and I would have to look it up over and over like a fucking idiot. Memory like a sieve; it pisses me off so much. Anyway, the character will have to be badly injured in order to die from a scorpion sting. The character can’t possibly die because he needs something else like loss of blood or exposure or dehydration. So I’ll have to injure him and keep withholding treatment. There’s no choice but to beat up on him and torture him if I want him to die at the end. Seems the scary looking scorpions in Arizona simply aren’t venomous enough to kill anything but a small child or a small animal. Sure, I’ve read that.

  Maybe people don’t die even if they have a broken arm and a gash in their thigh and they don’t get treated for the sting of a scorpion? For how long can they stay alive? Must have been a day since I was stung, though it could have been two days though because I haven’t been awake for most of the time and I passed out when I fell. Cell phone is dead now. It’s been looking for a signal. When I fell I lost track of time. What day did we get here, anyway? Was it a Sunday we left? Only planned to be there two days. Which direction is the fucking car? Why did I let Oliver lead me there without taking note of the way we were going? Dutch oven full of gold, a likely story. A story is the end of me. How fucking ironic. A story is the end of a writer’s existence. Irony is a cheap way to end a man’s life.

  And nobody ever dies from a scorpion sting.

  Nobody…ever…dies…