DAY 26: Presque Vu

There’s a guy sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper. Our interest is the paper not the guy cause the paper got news for your soul. The Presque Vu (that’s the name of the newspaper) disseminates truth that cuts like a knife. And our guy, he’s smart to be reading such a paper at this hour of the evening. Oh yeah, smart as a cat in a trash can.

Let’s get on with our story shall we?  The man’s name is Zaire, by the way. It’s actually Zaire’s first time of reading this paper. He met a man sitting on that bench-that was a while ago before you came along, and . . .

            “Hey, well met fellow,” Zaire said.

            “Hi there!” said the fellow.

            “I see you got the evening paper. What’s news?”

The guy, whose name we shouldn’t allow to ruffle our feathers at the present, shoved the paper over to Zaire. Zaire took it, scanned the headlines, flipped it open and began to read. The next moment this strange guy got up and started to leave.

            “Your paper, sir.” Zaire thrust the paper which he’d hurriedly closed towards the stranger.

            “Oh, never mind,” said the man. “I’m yet to see a story in the papers deserving a second read.”

And just like that the paper switched ownership. But, what Zaire was yet to find out which we’ll find out along with him was that there was more to the paper the stranger was not telling.

He opened the paper a second time and continued his reading. Of course, it was full of the usual stuff-sadist stuff. The stock market was a mess (as usual); a group of scientists proved rats descended from fleas (duh); and so on and so forth.

The part where the whole mess started falling apart was when Zaire started sensing something beyond the ordinary in the local news section. It felt wrong. He felt wrong.

Notes to myself:

What does Zaire do when he discovers everything he reads in the paper happens at the same time he reads it?

That the only way to stop those things is to stop reading the paper?

That he just read a while ago about the death of a loved one?

What if he’s got to find somebody else interested in reading the paper and pass it on or something fatal happens?