Jim couldn't remember anything that happened for the rest of that evening. He might have had many interesting adventures, witnessed by owls and bats and drunken people wobbling about the midnight streets of Fenwick, but no one, least of all Jim himself, would know.
The G-Juice had robbed his mind as well as his dignity - but the most remarkable thing about this situation was that Jim did not care. In fact, he was happy with how things were going. He figured, having led a full life of being bullied, coerced, and neglected, from childhood, living a life without a clear mind was a good thing going forward. G-Juice meant that he did not have to think. He did not have to remember, and that was the beautiful magic about the drink.
That evening Jim finally figured out that he was in love with the G-Juice.
He wanted to guzzle it every day...
Every Hour - minute...
Every second he wanted to feel the fiery glow of that warm green liquid flowing down his throat.
The drink could take free reign of his brain, liver and kidneys, it had Jim's permission to kill as many of his brain cells as it desired, so long as he felt the flow of the glow in his throat.
But when the flow stopped O my!
What a sad thing it was when that happened.
The horrors for Jim and his body once separate from the Juice were undeniably bad. The brain would switch back to life, take Jim's soul as a prisoner, and lock him in a cave that was dark and cold and full of vast monsters that clawed at him from the shadows while starring with red eyes. His body on the other had was another thing altogether, for while he was a prisoner in that dark cave his limbs would do this involuntary dance. His heart would pulsate like a thing possessed and his stomach would shake and his hands would quiver and his legs and feet would twitch.
Jim had NO control over his body...
...Not while he was a prisoner in that dark and horrible cave...
Not while the monsters were clawing at him from the shadows...
So that's how it was with him that evening, when Jim found himself all alone inside the abandoned train tunnel, with no G-Juice left to warm his soul.
He was angry, and he was too weak to do anything. He wanted to punch the sky, punch at anything, he wanted to scream.
But instead he collapsed.
He did not move for a long time.
The rats by the train tracks mistook him for dead and started clambering over his silent limbs, sniffing about the decay of his rotting clothes and hoping to gorge themselves on his poisoned flesh.
Jim started to see things, squirmy slithery objects crawling and falling on the walls of the train tunnel. Were they snakes, or were they worms? he could barely make there wiggly shapes between the blurry lines of his vision.
Eventually his eyes started to fade in and then out of the darkness.
During the last seconds of light, the figure of a short stout man appeared from behind a wall...
Wait... was it a man? Jim's vision was still so blurry at the time he couldn't quite make out for certain -
"Actually," Jim thought, "I think it is a toad!"
The toad started to talk to Jim. It so turned out that the animal was quite fluent in the English language - which I guess was lucky for both men.
'Hello there my lad,' said the Toad, and he introduced himself as Toddy. 'Everyone I know calls me Toddy,' he said. 'You'll often find me sauntering around the train tunnel. This place has been my home for the last few years. I rather like it here. I find the cold draft near the tunnel mouth quite sobering. Now that's me. I have introduced myself so I think it is your turn.'
The toad turned to Jim and asked for his name.
'I presume you have one?' said Toddy.
And Jim replied:
'Please... I am dying...'
'I know what ails you my son,' relied the toad. 'I have been in your position quite a few times myself. Hold on one moment I have the trick here in my coat pocket.'
Toddy brought out a small bottle of whiskey form his coat pocket, and emptied a portion of its contents down Jim's throat.
After that Jim perked right up. In fact he stopped shake and was actually able to stand back on his feet for the first time that evening.
'Thank for that my friend,' said Jim shaking Toddy by his webbed hand. 'You are pretty much a life saver right now.'
Toddy brushed his coat down and replied:
'A life for a life that's what I always say.'
Jim agreed, though in his heart he didn't really understand the Toads meaning.
But life for a life was the sacred saying in Toddy's family.
'I am a whiskey man myself,' Toddy explained.
Jim told Toddy all about his personal experience with the fabulous lifechanging G-Juice.
'G-Juice is the best,' said Jim. 'I am a new man because of it!'
'So I have seen!' Toddy replied. 'I saw you waddling around in the distance a few hours ago. It was a fine sight! I can't help but respect a man who drinks in the day and in the night! There is another saying in my family as well, and you know it's true because my father lived and died by it. He used to say: "Why live a sober life when you can be a drunk?" It's a magnificent saying if I don't say so myself and I would have it no other way in my own life!'
'If I had a glass of G-Juice in my hand right now I would be toasting you to that Toddy my boy,' said Jim. 'But there is no more juice left, alas for me. What a sorrowful moment this is for a man like me to be without juice. My heart sits inside me now as empty as the moon in the day without the light of the sun - like a tree without the wind to move its limbs or the birds to give it the voice of a song. I am as lonely as a mountain at the bottom of the sea, for I have nothing to drink. Woe for me, for I have not a drop of G-Juice, and soon my limbs will start shaking again. I can't cope with it, Toddy. You must help me!'
'I can tell that your liver is dry,' Toddy replied. 'It just so happens that I do have a bottle of G-Juice with me, fresh from the laboratory of our good friend Mr Ivan Gustav!'
Jim was so excited to hear this that his eyes almost bulged out of their sockets.
'Here drink up my son,' said Toddy handing the man the bottle.
Jim gulped back as much as his gullet would allow before the burn of the gushing spirit finally set in and became too much!
He had drunk too much too quickly.
A fools mistake he would never make again!
Jim vomited a good amount of the juice up, but knowing how much of a waste that was Jim got onto his knees and proceeded to lick up as much of the green fluid as he could with his tongue.
From far away you might have confused the man for a wretched desperate destitute dog scratching around on all fours, drinking from a festering puddle of scum.
Standing close by our boy Toddy watched all this and offered Jim and encouraging chuckle.
'I can see you and I are going to get on well Jim,' said Toddy. 'You have got spirit! And I don't just mean the drink! Ha! I like you. Now don't you worry about the spillage. I have pilfered another bottle from the lab. And it's yours, of course, but we will talk more about that in a minute. For now just enjoy the drink you have got now. Make the most of it. Sup up! Let it stir the liver. Let it get the blood pumping. Soon your brain will be as sharp as a saracens blade, and when the sunshine glitters once again on the sands of your mind, we will be ready to talk like men and toads. But for now just drink, and walk with me, this fine evening along the balcony beside the sea of Fenwick. Walk with me and drink Jim! There is something I would like to show you!'
(All spelling errors and grammatical mistakes are intentional - the author 😆)
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