Sample One

Excerpt from “The Alchemist.” (A Short Story)

Ever since he was a child, Perry was a hot sauce fanatic, and his adult desire was to create the supreme hot sauce. While in the kitchen, he rivaled the alchemists of old. Even Paracelsus and the professors at the great University of Alchemy in Prague would have been dazzled by his dexterity when pouring the contents of cans, bottles, and vials into the great cauldron. When he stirred it, he, like the witches of Macbeth, muttered, "Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble." As each new creation materialized in the pot and its scent permeated the room, his stomach churned, his skin blushed, and his brow rained perspiration.

Trouble was, Perry had acquired a reputation. He had scorched the mucous membranes of so many mouths that he now found it almost impossible to get anyone to taste his delicacies. With the depression of an artist whose canvasses are never exhibited, Perry lay awake nights scheming.

He remembered the story of the dunce who applied for a salesclerk's job in Macy's at the Pentagon Mall. The personnel manager, doubting the dunce's ability, proposed an experiment. He would give the dunce 100 toothbrushes and set up a table just outside the mall-entrance to the store. If the dunce could sell the toothbrushes in one day, he would have a job. So the dunce went to work.

"How can I sell toothbrushes?" he asked himself, and as he pondered this weighty question, he empty head suddenly lit up with the explosion of a supernova. Off he dashed to the grocery store. An item here, an item there. Just a very few items, but like Perry, he combined them with the dexterity of a witch and came up with a bewitching dip, the dip of all dips. Back to the mall in a flash!