Poisons.
There were so many. She never knew how many natural and manufactured toxins there were. They were everywhere, she found, appearing as man-made chemicals or occurring naturally in the food and in the earth.
Hadley mumbled to herself.
"It's impossible to know where to begin."
She opened a book.
C is for Cyanide. She began to read. She knew that cyanide was the poison used by Adolph Hitler in World War II to kill all those poor people.
Zyklon B.
Horrible. Horrible.
She continued to skim the pages.
Found in food and plants. In limas. In limas! I love limas.
In the seeds and pits of fruits like apples, peaches, apricots. Oh good. The edible parts have much lower amounts. In cigarette smoke. Probably the major source of exposure for people not employed in industries that use it.
"I'd better remember not to stand downwind of Delta," she muttered.
"Cyanide has been utilized in the extermination of pests, in pesticides and fumigants, plastics, electroplating, and mining." Hadley read aloud to herself. "It is used in dyes and drugs."
But there were other poisons.
"In food! And not to mention plants! Everyday garden variety. Poison! To animals, small children, and adults, too.
And goodness gracious! Weeds! Weeds can be poisonous and deadly, too!
Who knew! Illegal Jimsonweed grows wild almost anywhere in the United States. Can be fatal, especially with infants and the elderly. This seed is possibly the most toxic part of the plant.
Rhodendron and mountain laurel!
Not my pink and white beauties! I did not know that bees who feed on them can produce honey that will make me sick! Mad Honey! One of the most toxic! Illness! Death! And oleander! One of the most poisonous plants on earth!
She kept reading, contorting her face. The symptoms of all these poisons were awful. Too much information.
After a few of hours of intense reading, she had a pounding headache and tired eyes. It was late afternoon. She decided to call it quits for the night before her head exploded from the vast amount of information she had tried to process and before she needed new glasses.
YOU ARE READING
Nobody's Sorry You're Dead
Mystery / ThrillerA Clean Cozy Mystery - Mountain Air and Murder Hadley Pell, a college-educated housewife and widow, is still reeling from the loss of her beloved husband five years ago. She lives in a small town in the Southern Appalachians where nothing much happe...
