Harlton closed his eyes and recalled
the cool blue earth. He’d passed it en route to Mars once—one
of his binge-filled visits to his Uncle Francis in the cervical
mines beneath the gas brooders. Those biological mining machines
extracted Banana gas (that damned replacement). None of the
miners sniffed that shit of course, they were too close to
earth not to drink the sweet stuff.
Stop it. Your phasing back again. He
held out his arm, his fingers loosely holding a crinkled
leaflet. “You like comedy?” he asked a group of passing Japanese
tourists—they pushed passed him without even giving him a
glance.
No? I didn’t think you did, he thought,
his face tightening at the jaw. How about a quick one then?
Just a small glass. There’s no way she would know. Harlton
could feel two dollars in his back jean pocket. That could
buy me a shot of Hudson River Estate and an ice cube.
The Remedy Blue truck pulled away and
passed directly in front of him. He turned his head and his
eyes stopped as they found the pub across the street—The
Watering Hole.
The urge strangled him and constricted
his breathing passage. Itches found spots up and down his
legs and lower back. The heat smacked him in the face and
smothered him.
C’mon! Aren’t there ten billion people
on earth still addicted to it? You think you’re better than
them?
A woman walked by inhaling a bottle
of the yellow Banana gas into her nose. He looked at her
and cringed. That stuff is so flippin dry and bitter—I can’t
be dealing with it.
Harlton let the handbills drop to the
sidewalk in a flurry before hurrying across the intersection.
He let himself forget about the mental shackles that water
imposed on the human brain. He forgot about Georgia, he forgot
about everything—everything except the cool water flowing
down his throat. The fluid of the old world. The fluid that
for so long held back the floodgates of true progress.
As he reached the other side of the
street he instinctively pulled the money out from his pocket.
A quick one, he said to himself. Just a quick sip.
He pushed through the doors, immediately
feeling the cool and familiar humidity. He stepped up to
the counter, “A shot of water and one ice cube please.” He
stuffed the two dollars in the bartenders hand.
After a quick look the bartender handed
them back and laughed, “We can’t accept comedy leaflets as
payment, son.”
Harlton felt his stomach fill up with
gravel. He looked up from his handbills and found himself
in the bar mirror opposite, the Remedy Blue logo silkscreened
across his pot-marked face. You’re worthless, the thought—and
he licked up his tears as they came down over his lips.
