Liquid Silver

Silver, silver - it had to be silver. Seven empty bottles cluttered the counter by the time Tobie resolved to do something about it.  A bitter gift it would be, and one that would finally get her sister's wretched attention: but it had to be silver.

And it had to be seven bottles.  Seven for the number of years Heather had spent as an adored only child before Tobie came along and ruined the rest of her childhood.  She rushed to the employee bathroom, feeling wobbly and light-headed and a little giddy.  She probably should have waited to swallow it until she was actually in the bathroom.  It occurred to her that this time, she could really die.

She'd never been able to get that scene out of her head from an episode of Six Feet Under, where a slasher film actress ODed on the toilet at her own premier because she was too fucked up to quit snorting coke.  She was especially wrecked by that moment the girl's face was shown as her bladder relaxed, the little tinkling gush of urine, the way the girl's eyes and mouth softened almost in pleasure, just before she spit up and began to convulse.

But Tobie was not fucked up on coke, she was fucked up on her own brain, which, despite its propensity for retaining disturbing images and thinking up ways to torture her body, had so far been smart enough to calculate the odds of survival in her favor.  And shit, if she pulled this off, her sister could F.O.F.

She suppressed her gag reflex as she locked the door.  Even though the hardness in her throat was painful, the familiar relief of being alone in a bathroom rushed over her to sooth.  The Pearl art supply store on Canal street was an entire building filled with every kind of art material imaginable. For Tobie, it was paradise.  Up on the third floor in the little known alternative sculpture supplies section, she could pretty much do whatever she wanted.

She'd been working on a piece of jewelry for her sister's college graduation present in silver clay for weeks.  She'd started off trying to make her something really nice, something she'd have to like and approve of, even if it wasn't gold.  "Tobie, silver is just tacky, I don't care how expensive it is..." Tobie could hear her say. 

But as she worked on the medallion of Forget-Me-Nots, the design kept going dark and creatures made their way in, fangs and claws emerging without any effort or planning on Tobie's part.  She could hear her sister's voice perfectly in her head, "Tobie, you have so much talent, why do you waste it on these awful images, these pedestrian, rock music cliches?  You're so smart, you can do anything you want if you just put your mind to it."

But what if what I want is to make monsters, Heather?  she'd think, rubbing out the designs and starting again.  The more she tried to turn skulls and scales back into flowers, the more her anger took hold and drove her to "behaviors" she had been controlling really well since they let her come home from Saratoga Springs and get a job at the art supply store.

When she'd opened the carton of Liquid Silver, she'd never heard of it before.  Reading the instruction pamphlet, she saw that it was one of those novelty materials – "Pour Liquid Silver into plain water and watch it harden instantly into beautiful nuggets, just like it comes out of the earth!" – that were more science experiments for kids then art supply material. 

But the bottles fascinated her, tiny amber glass vials containing just enough material to make a molar sized nugget.  The warning label printed at the end of each pamphlet was severe, but the bottles themselves simply read, Liquid Silver.

Without really stopping to consider what she was doing, she'd poured seven vials into a small dixie cup, taken a big gulp of water and knocked back the shot of Liquid Silver.

She put the stopper in the sink drain and leaned over the basin to vomit.  The hardened lump of silver shot out in a stream of water, bile and blood and hit the porcelain with a ringing clink.  Her throat was on fire all the way down to the middle of her chest and her eyes were streaming, but she felt ecstatic.  She'd done it. 

She would need sixteen bottles for Heather, sixteen bottles for the number of years Heather had held Tobie under a microscope and ruined her childhood.  Tobie had come across her sister practicing her award speech just that morning and it had been eating at her.  Especially the part when Heather said, "My inspiration to study psychiatry has always been my baby sister..." 

She already had an idea of how to get her sister to drink her dose of Liquid Silver – those awful wheat grass shots she took first thing in the morning when she was still bleary and expected the shit to taste awful.

The pain in Tobie's throat was only soothed nominally by drinking down more cold water, and then spitting it back up, but she felt happy.  She planned what she would say to Heather.  "Remember the first time we ate all the leftover cheesecake, and you taught me how to throw up?  This is what your love for me is.  This is our symbol," and she would present Heather with her lump of silver.

"Your love is vomit."

And then they would see if Heather still had what it takes.

***

Bio: Pamila Payne is a native Los Angeles writer who spends a lot of time at a motel in West Texas with a bunch of dead guys. Flash Fiction is helping her to get out more and make new friends.