The Demise of a Snake Oil Salesman

Death of a Snake Oil Salesman

They say every story is the same: you go out to get what you want and return with what you need.

Unless you go out and run into a salesman, then you return with what he wants and the last thing you

need. This is one of those stories...

Crooked wheels kicking up dust on the wide open road. Crooked wheels tiptoeing over a makeshift

boardwalk threatening to sink into green mud. Crooked wheels rattling and lurching over cobblestones slick

with the bodily fluids of creatures alive and long dead. The sun simmers a mirage of water on the maroon

dust. The sun dapples and dances, through cypress trees draped in ghostly spanish moss, down onto the

sodden planks. The sun is choked out and blinded by teetering towers of black smoke from iron leviathans

that spit fire and bile at the cobblestones. Four horseshoes trudging. Four horseshoes knocking. Four

horseshoes stumbling. A shameless tumbleweed parades down the middle of the road. A languid swarm of

mosquitoes welcomes the new blood. A stray dog limps alongside the wagon optimistically. The solitary cry

of a rusted hinge begging for grease in the parched breeze. The invisible orchestra of cicadas reeds and

crickets strings hovering in the still soupy air. The roar of engines, grind of gears, screech of valves, crack of

whips, and last cough of canaries in the blustering smog. Glassware clinking in the wagon. Glassware

wincing in the wagon. Glassware cracking and spilling in the wagon. Faces tanned and blistered as old

boots, with black tooth-askew grimaces where their soles are worn out, puzzle at the carnival typeface

fading on the canvas of the wagon. Holier than thou smiles, dothed hats, and curtsied petticoats invite the

outsider's wagon in - with glimpses of toad wart rashes and swollen frog throats. Choosing to ignore the

double-barrelled glare of a Winchester shotgun, for its hands are quivering too much to even cock it, the

wagon rolls into town and spots a stop to set up shop. Past sand-blasted porches, where more squints and

scowls come out of the woodwork, to an open "square" at the "centre" of this one-horse-one-road town.

Past the whitewashed picket fences and veils of flowers to a glade under the watchful eye of a church

steeple which, alarmingly, begins to ring its shrill bell. Past the sweaty machines of a railyard too

preoccupied with their logistical pinball to pay any attention to the wagon, into an alleyway with the

lingering dizzying miasma of (God damn) burnt hair. The Salesman disembarks. The Salesman disembarks.

The Salesman disembarks.

From a suspicious distance his tan three-piece suit, matching bola hat, gold silk tie, and glinting

pocket-watch chain, present a man whose wealth and success might rub off on you. From up close and

curious, however, the buttons pulled tight over his paunch and the sizzled rasher of skin exposed between

his stained collar and warped hat brim, present a man who's frittered away wealth and fudged successes