Short Story – The Poisoned Village

I tried a new title generator today, which let me cycle through adjectives and nouns. This is what I ended up with. Let's go!

THE STORY

I walked down the street, on my way to work, and watched as the poison worked its way through the minds of those around me. Someone walking in the other direction, their eyes glued to their phone, didn't see me, and I had to step out of the way so they didn't walk directly into me. She only looked up momentarily, to glare at me, then look me up and down and scoff at my shirt, slightly creased from wearing it yesterday and not hanging it up properly overnight. I stared at her as she looked back down at her phone, and walked off.

When I reached my office building, a small building, only two stories high and housing four different companies, I walked in, pausing only slightly for the automatic doors to recognise that there was a person there and open for me. I pressed the button for the lift, and waited for it to come down and collect me. I had done something to my knee yesterday evening when I went out running, and going up the stairs in my apartment had been agony. I didn't want to repeat that.

I turned at the sound of the automatic doors opening again, and watched as one of my co-workers walked in.

"Morning," I greeted him, and he nodded in my direction, frowning at me as he noticed what I was doing. He turned away from me, shaking his head to himself as he mumbled something about people being lazy. I think he jogged up those stairs to try and make a point.

The lift finally shuddered down to meet me, and I walked in, pressing the button for the next floor up. The doors started closing as the automatic doors opened again, and a woman's voice called out "hold the lift!"

I stuck my hand out, hoping that the sensors in this thing were up to date enough to know not to close on someone. They took a moment, but the doors opened up again, and the woman hobbled in on crutches, her knee bent, holding up the cast on her ankle off the floor.

"Thanks," she said, leaning against the wall of the lift. "You don't know how many people have ignored me the last couple of days."

"It's no problem," I told her as the lift doors closed again. "I'm Noah."

"Marie," she held out her hand, the crutch dangling from her elbow, and I took it. "I haven't seen you around here before."

"I'm usually in much earlier than this," I explained, "I've had quite an ordeal of a morning."

"Really?"

"Yeah, slept through my alarm, couldn't find a clean shirt, almost fell down the stairs. The usual," I shrugged and she giggled.

The doors opened and we both walked out into the hall. I looked through the glass partition of my office and saw the man who ran up the stairs, his face red as he downed a glass of water.

"You'll never guess how I broke my ankle." I turned back to face Marie, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Skiing accident?"

"Nope, I didn't realise there was another step and tripped. I went flying, and somehow got my foot caught in the banister."

"Ooh." I screwed up my face. "Sound's painful."

"It wasn't the nicest of sensations. Look, I've got to get to work, but do you want to get lunch or something today? If I'm not being presumptuous or too forward, of course. It's just, I've been living here for nearly a month now and you're the first person who I've actually had a proper conversation with."

"Yeah, that would be nice. And the people in this town? They're all too wrapped up in themselves, to notice those around them. And if they do notice, they're trying to find flaws. Once you get past the judgement, you'll find that there's actually one really good thing about this place."

"Oh yeah?" She asked, as I tried to hide my grin. "What would that be?"

"The fish and chip shop down the street."

Fin.

I was trying to think of what the 'poison' could be without committing mass murder in my story, and I think judgement is definitely something that could class as a poison. Don't judge a book by it's cover, and don't judge a person full stop.

Also, I have a really long list of names after I asked for a girl's name for my last story, and I feel obligated to make a story for them all. This time, it was for Marie.

That's all for now.

Bye!