I got confused by time zones again last week. I had mine written, but being in the Mountain time zone, I missed the deadline. I did post it here, though.
Anyway, here is my post for this week, inspired by:
Here is "The Far-Seeing Eye".
The Far-Seeing Eye
The bottle was clearly marked “Poison.” Even without the label it’s deep purple color would have kept me from drinking it. The Apothecary followed my gaze.
“Don’t let looks or labels deceive you,” he said. Taking the small bottle down from the shelf, he continued. “What better way to keep curious minds and sticky fingers from pilfering it? No, that elixir, in small doses mind you, is not poisonous.”
My own curiosity was piqued. “What does it do?”
“Magic,” he replied as he set the bottle in the beam of sunlight on his worktable.
The shadow it cast made me blink. It was not solid—no shadows are of course—what I mean is its blackness was interrupted by a keyhole-shaped brightness that shown with its own light. In the center of the bright oval non-shadow, a pupil shape scanned back and forth until it found me.
“What’s that hole in the shadow?” The eye’s gaze was unnerving.
“That is the Far-Seeing Eye that lives within the elixir. One drop and your mind can travel to any distant land you can imagine.” He raised an eyebrow. “Want to try?”
The Apothecary pulled the cork and dipped his pinky into the bottle. A single drop clung to his skin. Hesitating but an instant, I stuck out my tongue. It was mildly bitter.
“Concentrate on your destination,” he said, though his voice seemed to come from a distance. “It can be a place, a person, or even a time in the past.”
I thought of my brother conscripted and shipped off to fight the king’s war. The Apothecary’s shop faded from view to reveal a hole in the barren ground which was stained red with young men’s blood. I saw my brother lying in the hole as dirt was shoveled on top.