Poisoned

14. Luck Was Striking

I couldn't believe people weren't aware of how much cash is up for grabs through quick games.

This time the win was $1800 in two installments. With each batch, I went shopping determined to undo any chemical harm that they were including.

It was fun.

The most advertised detergents and those you discover in the aisle were included one by one, after stopping at the Health section for alcohol and gloves.

The department store of course had electronics, so I moved on to the air purifier section and spent a long time adding and subtracting in my head, while researching online if prices were comparable.

When I looked up, I noticed I had been spotted.

The person searching for me rose her eyebrows and stopped walking, then looked absently as she walked passed me with a visible walkie-talkie hanging.

It wasn't the kind that clerks wear so I turned toward her and saw her partner almost speedwalk past us, but he abruptly stopped. I was cornered.

The man looked devilishly at me and I grabbed the most expensive humidifier I could find and started to leave the aisle.

They matched my pace toward the middle of the store, where I pretended to look through a denim rack, while they walked passed me.

When they slowed down as they approached me. I pretended to love a shirt and sped-walked toward the front of the store.

Others dressed casually but carrying the distinct walkie talkies were throughout the store and I went into survival mode.

The box of the humidifier was heavy and leaving me crammed with the other stuff I was carrying, but I passed an empty shopping cart and took it.

Nobody yelled, "hey" behind me, but then I reached the busy registers.

The line was going to take at least 4 transactions and the only two options for who I could stand behind were people who looked at each other and laughed as I noticed their walkie-talkies.

They both had a few items in baskets, but when I stood behind the one on the left, she turned toward the register, and the

Then they each held a tissue behind their back and opened their hand toward where I standed over and over.

I noticed the box of the humidifier would be great to block anything they were exuding into the air, but it was slippery when I tried to lift it.

I was holding my breath, turning away from the tissues, but felt I needed this to fix my breathing.

They eventually paid and it was my turn.

The clerk looked at me and took the humidifier, scanned it, and allowed another clerk to mop before she placed it directly on a wet rag the mop left.

"Is my humidifier now soaked at the bottom?"

"I didn't see," she said after pushing the rag away with her foot.

It was. I lifted it and touched it and felt my heartrate speed up.

"What's in that cleaner?"

"I'm not sure, sir, but we have to take that and get you a new one."

"That's okay." My cashier turned toward the clerk that mopped and nodded.

The other clerk approached and said, "I'll be right back," as she walked away with the box.

I no longer trusted it.

I don't know why I accepted it, but I waited there and eventually my cleaner came, opened.

"This is the only one we have left, but it works just fine."

It didn't.

When I opened it the filters felt wet and greasy in some spots.

I couldn't smell anything suspicious, but I also felt droopy from the ongoing weakening my body was taking.

I stopped by a drugstore to get a Gatorade and and bought charcoal pills, because I researched them and found out they would prevent whatever my body is injecting unwillingly from reaching my bloodcells by encapsulating the poisons and later digesting them and expulsing them.

I was ready for work the next day