Around the Bend: Not Like Cynthia

I wanted to bite more off the biscuit that night, but I thought it would be better to let Cynthia suffer for another day. I put the bag under my pillow.

That night I had nightmares about Cynthia. I saw her lying in a coffin, with her hands folded across her chest. She was dressed in a long, white gown, with flowers in a garland round her head. She was smiling. Peaceful. The coffin tilted and began to slide away. It fell into a hole which opened in the ground. Then I felt myself slipping towards the edge of the hole, too. I screamed and fought to stop from falling. Far below I could see Cynthia's coffin, tumbling. I tried to hold on to the edge of the hole. My fingers ripped the grass up by its roots. Now I was falling, too...

That was yesterday morning, Mum. Remember how I looked when I came in for breakfast. You thought I was sick, but I wasn't. It was just tiredness, and fright. The dream had been so real. I didn't want to go to school, but you said you'd let me know if anything happened. I didn't tell you that I knew something was going to happen. You didn't know what I had done that morning, before you saw me. You didn't see me take the biscuit out of its bag and bite one of Cynthia's arms off. I knew you'd hear the news pretty soon. That's why I didn't argue about not going to school. I wanted to go. I wanted to get out of the house and down the road before the phone rang.

The rest you know.

Mum, I'm sorry. Dad, I wish I could go back to where it all started. This whole mess is my fault. If I'd only thought about it, everything could have been so different. I caused Cynthia to die. I did it. Please forgive me!

Oh yes, there was one other thing. This is the worst part. Last night I heard a knock at our front door. Dad was at the hospital and you, Mum, were on the phone so you didn't see the man. It was the same one who had delivered the biscuit. He was just standing there, in the doorway, with his black suit and shiny black shoes, and he looked as mean as ever.

"I see you decided to eat the biscuit," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"You realize that you have had your chance now, don't you?"

"Yes," I said.

"If you had not eaten your enemy within 24 hours of delivery, the product would have destroyed itself and the company would have closed down," the man said. "But since you have chosen to exercise your choice, the company may now give one biscuit to someone else."