Swamp Juice

“For a buck,” Willy said to the bartender, “I’ll have a two-finger shot.” The one-eyed man smiled while watching Willy down the green-yellow liquid.

“Wow, that’s some awful tasting shit,” Willy complained as he gasped for air, “And here, I thought it was Absinthe.”

“We call it ‘Swamp Juice,’” the bartender said, continuing to issue his singular smile.

Next, Willy turned his attention to the unengaged pool table. Dropping seventy-five-cents in the slot, he pushed the lever allowing the balls to rush down and into the front tray.

He racked the balls up, then picked out a pool stick from the wall-stand, noticing it had an odd feel to it. He studied it, realizing it was made of smooth, polished bone.

“That’s so friggin’ cool,” he said.

Calmly, he placed the milky-colored cue ball behind the service line and considered the triangular arrangement at the far end of the felted table. Then he looked at the cue ball, which to his surprise had a green jaundiced iris and a penetratingly inky black pupil, staring back at him.

The eye blinked, then a flap, best described as a unfettered fold, slid over the iris and it’s accompanying pupil. Amid a startled scream of ululated terror, the barroom for Willy fell into complete darkness.

Willy awoke in an empty field of grass near a small miasmal pond, under tenebrous sunlight. He felt as if he were suffocating, as he battled to rid himself of the horde of frogs that canvassed his body.