Steve Dawson
Vermincarnation
The cornstalk maze, a rusty Ferris wheel, and deep-fried chunks of cheese. Here I was again at the annual county fair. The kids ditched me immediately to find their friends. Not much here for an old guy like me to do and pass the time. I could shoot some tin ducks and win a stuffed animal, but then I’d have to carry the thing around for the rest of the day.
That’s why beer gardens are my sanctuary. I sniffed one out and ordered three plastic cups of beer. It was still early and no one else was around. After finishing my third beer, I checked my watch. I still had a few hours until the kids would be ready to leave. I ordered three more, but the barkeep refused. He had his face painted like a cat and wore a white coat.
“Five’s the hourly limit,” he told me. “We can’t have guys passing out and driving away business.” I was about to say, What business? when I saw another man walk in.
“I mean four,” I said. “Two for me, and two for my friend there.” That was all good in the Bar Cat’s books, so I brought them over to the guy, stopping him in his path.
“Bought you a beer, friend,” I said. He sat down with me at the table, but something bothered him. I asked him what was wrong.
No response. He picked up one of the beers and chugged it.
“Help yourself,” I joked. He downed the second just as quickly. His eyes met mine and he asked if he could have the last one.
“You tell me what’s troubling ya and we can share it,” I said.
“I just saw,” he began, “this woman. She told me what I was in another life.”
“You went to high school together?”
“No, no. Before I was born, I mean.”
“I could have told you that,” I said. “We were all at some point just an egg and—”
“Before that!” He snapped. Then he grabbed the beer from my hand and gulped it down. “I’m sorry, it’s just… she told me who I was in a past life. She was a fortune teller, or psychic, or something.”
“You couldn’t have been that bad,” I said. He started to cry. My kids told me I was bad at making new friends, so it was good they didn’t witness me bringing the only other customer at a beer garden to tears before lunchtime.
“Look, I’ll test out this ‘psychic’ for you. What’s her name? Lady Zelda? Dame Esmeralda?”
“Miss Thompson,” he said. “She’s got a tent by the milk bottle toss.”
“Come in, come in,” she beckoned, wiping her hands with hand sanitizer. “What is it you wish to know, dear sir? I asked how much it would cost to know about my past life.
“Two tickets,” she answered. “Or twenty bucks.”
Since I had none of these mysterious ‘tickets’ I gave her a twenty and asked the question again. She consulted the spirits, ancestors, or whoever lived between her temples.
“I see a cage,” she said. “Wood shavings…” Then, her eyes wide and glaring, she said, “Mice! I see mice! Do you know what ‘LD50’ means?”
My lips knitted and my eyebrows pursed, or maybe the other way around. I shook my head.
“LD50 is the lethal dose for a substance. Scientists give a certain dose to a hundred mice, and when the dose kills at least fifty of them, that dose is the LD50.”
I flunked science, so this was news to me. Miss Thompson sounded more like a science teacher than a psychic.
“So I was…”
“You were a mouse.”
“A mouse?”
“Not just any mouse,” she corrected, pointing her finger upward. “You were a mouse who was given many, many doses of LSD.”
“Oh,” I said.
“You see, they never found the LD50 for LSD.”
“Right,” I said.
“You were given increasing doses of LSD until that little mouse heart of yours eventually stopped pumping.” She seemed to be getting too much enjoyment out of all this. I belched but quieted it with the back of my wrist. She must have heard me because she scoffed and crossed her arms.
“I have nothing more to tell you, sir,” she said. “It is another twenty dollars to hear about your future.” I only had one more twenty in my wallet for my return to the beer garden. I got up and tripped over a fake raven as I stumbled out of the small tent.
Back at the beer garden, I was startled to see so many people sitting and drinking in the area now. But no sign of the guy from before. I ordered a fresh set of beers and carried them to a table. Unlike the fellow earlier, these new customers were all cheery and jolly. They were laughing and smiling. I drank my beers and pondered the whole scenario. Was I a mouse on acid before this life? I had tried LSD when I was in my twenties, but who didn’t? It was the sixties. Wait, no, it was the eighties. Well, when I was in my twenties, the eighties were like my sixties.
As I thought about it more, I noticed that everyone around me was gnawing on these large pellets instead of drinking. I’d never had any of these pellets, but I figured they must be damn delicious since everyone was chewing on one. I decided I should find the pellet vendor, but I was surprised that someone had already replaced my remaining beers with a few pellets. I grabbed one and started gnawing on it with my two big incisors. It was delicious. I could see why all the other mice around me were so into them.
Steve Dawson
Steve Dawson is a published writer based in British Columbia, Canada. He has written short stories, personal essays, and articles featured in Island Writer Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, and various news outlets. In addition to writing, he performs standup comedy and posts eclectic Instagram Stories that either delight or distress his followers.