The Right Stuff by Steve Jones -B5
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SUMMARY: a famous titles flash fiction contest entry. See forums/writers/(with apologies)
It was a dark and stormy afternoon. Thunder ripped through the sky like the aftershocks of a three alarm burrito washed down with a dual-strawed cherry cola. Soggy rain fell from the sky, pelting the stone pavement in torrents like the raw gritty narrative you'd read in a cheap novel.
"It ain't real Joe," Sam said from the back of a barely dry cardboard shelter. "It's just a story."
"No," Joe insisted. "I've heard all about it. You take one hit of the glow and you float forever. No more downers."
"We used to call that ‘dead'," Sam shrugged.
"Honest," He said. "They say Jac LeQuin got it and he's been a happy since."
"You can't believe nothing he says."
"I'm going to find it, I'm going to find it as soon as the rain stops."
"That's gonna be a while," Sam said turning over and pulling a tattered blanked over his shoulders. "Best get some sleep."
*************
The next morning Joe was gone. Sam woke to the sound of traffic and mud being moved around the streets. The mud got to it's destination sooner.
Sam made the rounds of trash containers and hand out stops. Maybe he couldn't score any good stuff today, but he was sure going to eat. By the time he returned to the box and the end of the day he wasn't glutted full, but he wasn't starving either, and he'd found a nice raincoat with only two big rips in it and something black and sticky on the sleeve.
Joe was there, sitting on the cardboard floor, wearing a new baseball hat.
"Joe," Sam said as he crawled in. "Where've you been?"
"I found it Sam," Joe said with a distantly hazy smile. "I got the glow. It's real."
"So what's the strings?"
"What?"
"The strings," Sam said. "You don't get something for nothing, not in this crazy, crazy town. What're the strings on the forever high?"
"It wasn't nothing I was using anyway."
"I have half a mind to pop you in the mouth," Sam huffed. Joe wasn't usually so dense.
"How'd you know?" Joe asked with a small voice.
"What'd they take?" Sam asked. There was something different ...
Joe took off his hat. His head was shaved and there was a new thin scar across the top of his head.
"Just half my brain."
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