Don't Eat the Sushi- Ch .1

Chapter I

“Do you think we could get away with it?”

“Get away with poisoning her?”

“Yeah.”

Selma paused to think about it, shrugged and said “Probably.” She took a sip of her coffee. It was a tempting idea, Tracy had to admit. The woman had been driving her bonkers; so much so that Tracy had recently been fantasizing about ways to seriously injure her. It wasn’t that her esteemed professor wasn’t good at what she did, per say. It was just that she was such a raging bitch, especially to her TAs, like Tracy and Selma.

Many of her students admired her and felt inspired by the African Art and stories class she taught at the university. But for Tracy, Selma and pretty much all the other TAs she was simply known as the Bull. She treated them like her servants, there to do her will and bidding. They were so much more than that. They were TAs for a reason; they were aspiring for something more: a master’s degree for one, a life for another and most importantly a dream.

Tracy and Selma continued to sip their coffees in silence. All around them at the coffee shop people were reading their books, typing on their laptops or quietly chatting to one another, not a worry in the world past the next term paper or their boyfriend’s cryptic words the other night.

Tracy wanted to be that carefree, not worried about what the Bull was going to demand next or what she would end up doing wrong this time. “I’m not saying I want to kill her or anything, just put her out of commission long enough to get to next term when I can be re-assigned,” Tracy said quietly, looking around to make sure no one was listening.

“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Selma asked incredulously.

“Well” Tracy paused, briefly, very briefly then said “Yeah.”

“Tracy! You do realize you’re talking about harming someone, not to mention all the laws you’d be breaking.”

“We’d be breaking…”

“We, whose we?!”

“You, me, Brad, Kathy, all of us. You don’t know how many of them I’ve talked to about this very thing.”

“They weren’t serious though.”

“Maybe,” Tracy said as she took another sip of her coffee.

Selma sat there looking stunned for a few moments. What if they could get away with it? Their lives would be so much happier. But how, how would this work, really?

“How would this work?” Selma asked with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. Tracy looked around the coffee shop again, moved in closer to the table and said in a very low voice “The way I figure it we’d need at least 4 people in on it. A couple to distract her with some inane questions, one person to give her the poisoned whatever acting like we’re sucking up and care about her approval and someone there to watch to make sure she eats it. More of us would always be good. Crowd up that terrible office of hers and make it harder for her or anyone else to place blame, if it comes to that.” Tracy muttered the last bit and sipped her coffee. If Selma was going to help Tracy didn’t want to scare her off right from the start.

“But wouldn’t they be able to tell she had been poisoned?”

“Ahh, yes, well I’ve been thinking about that. Have you ever noticed how much sushi that devil eats?”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is mercury poisoning is quite common from eating lots of sushi, not to mention everyone is talking and worrying about it because of Jeremy Piven’s recent episode during that play he was in.”

“So you’re suggesting we dose her with mercury?”

“Yeah, we could even have someone bring her sushi already injected with an extra dose of it.” Tracy realized that this plan was beginning to form itself.

After a few moments where both of them sat lost in their own thoughts Selma finally spoke. “Tracy, what you’re talking about is highly illegal and highly exciting.” More silence. After a few more moments Selma said “All right, let’s get the bitch!” Tracy smiled and they clinked their coffee mugs.