Glasses: there are hundreds, each filled with red wine. There's no way to tell which is the one with the poison in it. No way at all.
It was a good harvest last year, those grapes have been fermenting and now, one year on, the wine's ready for bottling.
Things were going great, until yesterday. I was looking at the post and enjoying my morning coffee when I opened the unmarked envelope and there it was. A promise, not a threat, that the writer of the letter had poisoned a batch of barrels.
If we loose this year's wine it'll ruin the company. I refuse to let that happen, I built this place from the ground up.
So I put out an offer to the workers. A taste test: high risk, high reward. I explained the situation to the ten who came forward and have already paid them for their silence.
The next morning we were there, the five who kept their nerve and me. As an act of goodwill I stepped up first and raised a glass, suddenly reminded of my own mortality as I stared into the deep red. I gulped it down before I lost my nerves. Lips tingling. Was that the wine or the poison? For a whole minute no-one moved, no-one breathed. The only sound in the silence was the occasional creak of wood from the rows and rows of barrels.
I turned gravely, "C'est bonne."
The men shifted uncomfortably. Most were in their fifties, one in his early twenties. I guess money must be hard for him.
And so we drank, glass after glass, each of us seeing our life flash before our eyes before breathing a sigh of relief. After a time it felt like there was an extra person in the tomb like cellar. Death had joined us, waiting patiently.
And valiantly, with each quiet act of bravery unknown to the outside world, we got roaring drunk.
I woke up in bed, Phillipe snoring on the sofa. Maybe we should've just taken sips. The sunlight in my eyes felt like daggers. I tried to stand only once, my spinning head was having none of it. On my chest was an unopened envelope, the same kind as the one that had caused all these problems in the first place. A scrap of paper and a photo fell out, a picture of my brother Simon back in Conneticut, grinning. On the paper there were just two words. As I read them a reluctant grin spread across my own face.
'April Fools'
It was a good harvest last year, those grapes have been fermenting and now, one year on, the wine's ready for bottling.
Things were going great, until yesterday. I was looking at the post and enjoying my morning coffee when I opened the unmarked envelope and there it was. A promise, not a threat, that the writer of the letter had poisoned a batch of barrels.
If we loose this year's wine it'll ruin the company. I refuse to let that happen, I built this place from the ground up.
So I put out an offer to the workers. A taste test: high risk, high reward. I explained the situation to the ten who came forward and have already paid them for their silence.
The next morning we were there, the five who kept their nerve and me. As an act of goodwill I stepped up first and raised a glass, suddenly reminded of my own mortality as I stared into the deep red. I gulped it down before I lost my nerves. Lips tingling. Was that the wine or the poison? For a whole minute no-one moved, no-one breathed. The only sound in the silence was the occasional creak of wood from the rows and rows of barrels.
I turned gravely, "C'est bonne."
The men shifted uncomfortably. Most were in their fifties, one in his early twenties. I guess money must be hard for him.
And so we drank, glass after glass, each of us seeing our life flash before our eyes before breathing a sigh of relief. After a time it felt like there was an extra person in the tomb like cellar. Death had joined us, waiting patiently.
And valiantly, with each quiet act of bravery unknown to the outside world, we got roaring drunk.
I woke up in bed, Phillipe snoring on the sofa. Maybe we should've just taken sips. The sunlight in my eyes felt like daggers. I tried to stand only once, my spinning head was having none of it. On my chest was an unopened envelope, the same kind as the one that had caused all these problems in the first place. A scrap of paper and a photo fell out, a picture of my brother Simon back in Conneticut, grinning. On the paper there were just two words. As I read them a reluctant grin spread across my own face.
'April Fools'
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