No | A flash fiction story
54 of đź’Ż
This was back when my bar was called Dino’s. At that time, I didn’t understand capitalism isn’t about good and evil, it’s about natural selection: if the lion doesn’t kill the gazelle, it starves to death.
Things were bad. The neon sign in front of the bar tried in vain, night after night, to spell “Dino’s”. The “D”, the “I”, and the “S” had already given up on me. Instead, the sign announced the same answer people gave me when I invited them in: no.
It was rock-bottom. If I didn’t make any money soon, they wouldn’t only take my bar, they would kick me out of Argon. I couldn’t have that. So I did the sensible thing. I went to the back of the bar and mixed every toxic shit I could find in a pompous cocktail of death — I even added one of those little umbrellas. Cheers to bankruptcy.
The thing was delicious, and I drank it joyously until I blacked out, happy I was gonna die drinking like a gentleman. Except I didn’t die. The only killer thing was the headache I had when I woke up the next day — the same consequence of drinking the horrible stuff I already served at the bar.
So I did the mix again and started selling it, and people stopped saying no. I started experimenting with whatever I had lying around. Losing my teeth to the failed experiments was a low price compared to the bar’s profits, which now actually existed. Am I basically serving poison? Maybe. But Atlanta Inc. doesn’t give a fuck about what I sell. If people buy it, that’s on them.
Things got even better after the rebranding. Toothless Dino’s — I even got a new neon sign. So come on down and pick your poison, as they say. Mine are actually delicious.
