Do The Right Thing

Things in her life were going wrong. Her air conditioning broke. When the landlord fixed it, the air conditioner broke again. When the landlord replaced the air conditioner, and the new unit broke, he told her she would need to live with it for a while until he figured it out. Something must be wrong with the power of the unit. Tasha hated being hot, but here she was, dripping sweat. She had a bit of a headache. The voice in her head was louder: “Do the right thing.”

She had to borrow heels at the strip club. A brownish liquid had dripped from the ceiling of her apartment and got all over both pairs of her favorite strip dancing heels. The landlord checked the roof but there was no liquid up there. The gooey fluid looked like chocolate mixed with snot. It was hell getting that stuff off her shoes.

She got into a fight with Sassy. Once Sassy finished her routine, and it was Sugar's turn, the pole was coated with that same brown sticky substance. That stuff could not have gotten on the pole without Sassy putting it there. She ran off the stage and snatched the wig off Sassy's head, punching her in the face as she did so. Sassy claimed she put nothing on the pole.

They fired her from Gentleman Jim's after the substance appeared every time she performed. The liquid would appear at random locations in the club each time she tried to dance. No matter who she danced after, she could not do her pole tricks. If she went to the pole, the substance was there. They lost customers to the sticky substance being on the bar and in chairs. One girl, Candy, said that Sugar was bringing bad juju to the club since the gluey chocolate only appeared when Sugar appeared.

A psychic the club owner brought in advised the club to fire Sugar. The owner felt he had no choice and did as suggested. The voice in her head was so loud that she could hardly hear people talk. Still, Sugar did not call Lucille's family. She spent no more of Lucille's money, but she did not put things right either.

Her apartment was so hot. Sugar wanted to go out. The door would not open. Ok, then. She went to the small window. The window did not open. Sugar couldn't fit through it, anyway. She went to the fridge to get a drink of water. When she attempted to fill her glass with ice, brown cubes came out. She tried to pour herself a glass of milk; what came out appeared to be chocolate. She didn't have any chocolate milk in her refrigerator. Was the apartment getting warmer? The radiators were on and smoking hot. Sugar took her clothes off and headed for the shower. Nothing but brown nastiness came out of the showerhead.

Forty-eight hours later, a naked, brown slush-covered, hot Sugar sat on the floor in the bathroom mumbling along to the sound in her head to ‘do the right thing.’ She was sweaty, sticky, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. She could not get out of the apartment. Her phone did not work. The toilet did not work. Her food and water were contaminated. The food was perfectly fine until she tried to eat it. Then, as soon as she picked it up, the item was covered in chocolate slush. She tried eating the slush, but the slush came right back up. She vomited until she was dry heaving.

Sugar went to her room. She slid on shorts and a top. Getting a knife out of the drawer, she decided she would cut the door lock from the door to leave. Chipping the wood from around the lock was going surprisingly well until Sugar cut her thumb deeply. The red blood squirted out of her hand. Alarmed, Sugar ran to get a towel, but the towel had the brown goo all over it. She was going to bleed to death in here.

Sugar picked up her phone and dialed Lucille's family. She told them about the money and how she would get it to them in the next few days. As she hung up the phone, the brown goo left. It just vanished. The sound in her skull went quiet. The radiators suddenly stopped steaming. She lay there for a moment, enjoying the insanity of her situation.

She called 911 for her wound. When she crawled to the door, Tasha saw the perfect piece of chocolate cake sitting there on the counter. Right before Tasha passed out, she took a big bite; it was so delicious.