Leaded (flash fiction)
You're not supposed to relate to this.
Jan 23, 2025
I started eating lead with my food because I want to know what it’s like to be a serial killer.
Excitement has long since left me, and having exhausted every last whim or hedonistic fancy, what’s left?
I would have never guessed, but lead is widely available, despite the effort to filter it from our waters. I buy mine on Amazon—the Two-day Prime shipping I enjoy is free, but usually it arrives next-day.
The ingots I get in the mail are 1 lb. each, make a kind of clacking sound reminiscent of dominoes falling atop each other, and are unevenly cast. The lines, blemishes, and uneven bumps and craters in the silvery bars are kind of like me without the inherent value we assign to precious metals.
Our Oracle of Delphi, Wikipedia, had nothing on leaded serial killer recipes. So, I scrape shavings into my morning cup of joe. I eyeball it, make sure I can swallow it comfortably. I do the same with my evening tonic water and vitamin ritual.
Feb 27, 2025
I don’t feel any different.
I’m still me. No voracious appetite for the macabre, no fangs, no elongated and sharp fingernails, no thirst for blood. One month and I’m devastated. Not even a slight interest in meeting new people.
I wonder if the change will be abrupt, like a light switch. One day I’m finishing my daily run, I wipe the sweat from my brow, and click—like an accomplished werewolf, I’ve got the instinct, the nose for fear and an insatiable need to devour. I’ll have direction again.
As far as I’m aware, not even hard drugs can change someone so completely; well, no one wants to be a drug addict.
April 4, 2025
It dawned on me today that anyone can buy lead and shave it into anyone's drink.
May 2, 2025
I think the transition is more like aging wine.
June 22, 2025
I cast my own lead now. Local tire shops basically give it away for free. I fear I may have gone too far.
