The Energy Drink

Harry was struggling to keep on top of the everyday. He felt swamped and in a true sense of the word, he saw his life as a rank place, to be endured, the wading through it odious and malodorous and in danger of taking him under.

But he just needed, he felt, a little more pep to keep it going smoothly.

When he found Renew online, an energy drink which claimed to help "the average man keep his foot on the throat of life", he was seduced by the image suggested, of him conquering life and keeping it as his prize, like a trophy hunter with an endangered animal.

He ordered his first batch.

He wasn't sure what it tasted like - watery? - but he was a man of faith and so, he went with it.

And he did feel more energised and he did have the means to keep going. He still felt stressed but he convinced himself that he was being supported through this by Renew. The years went by, and he still maintained the same pace.

People would ask him "How do you keep going?" and he would say "It's this Renew" and would extol people with the wonderful properties of this energy drink, which he was starting to think was some sort of secret elixir. Nobody else was convinced despite his exhortations of its benefits and how he was living, walking proof.

But this all changed one day when Harry went on to search "how to renew your driving licence", put his search into Google, saw "Renew drink scandal" and went down that rabbithole.

*

When Harry collapsed, it was such a shock to his family and friends. He'd looked like he could go on forever and indeed, Harry had felt that way too until that ill-advised search where he came across an article by a missing journalist who had accused a big conglomerate drinks' manufacturer of passing water off as an energy drink and scamming the unsuspecting public out of millions.

Harry's heart took umbrage at being so fooled and to protest, it decided to palpitate at an extreme speed until the placebo effect of Renew finally wore off.

***

366 words

I am skeptical about a lot of things but very much what gets put into drinks whose labels profess to give you energy. Especially if they are a lurid colour.

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