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seven years and I never met her parents. I suppose I felt intimidated by her privileged background and the constant fear of not being good enough.
    Her folks were into private schooling, career building, and all that jazz. I assumed them to be the kind of pretentious people that judged a person by their education rather than natural intelligence or strength of character. Still, despite our differences in upbringing, I loved her. Our sense of humour was identical and she made me laugh like no one else could. Also, she was loyal to me—or so I thought.
    One summer, I decided to make more of an effort by arranging a weekend getaway to Brittany. Her folks lived somewhere in that region and I promised her we would finally pay them a visit. But first, we would stop at the beach…where the green things lived.
    We chose a secluded spot for our sunbathing, far away from the plebs and their screaming offspring. I spread the towels on the sand and watched her strip down to her bikini. She had an amazing body. Cerise lay on her belly while I sensuously rubbed lotion into her creamy skin. She moaned softly, “Dat feelrz so nice,” her French accent still strong. I kept my eyes on her back but my attention soon shifted towards the sea. The killers were here.
    “Fancy a dip?” I asked innocently after several minutes.
    Cerise whipped around, smiling playfully.
    “Sure! Let'z go,” she replied, and reached for my hand.
    “You go in first,” I offered. “I'll join you in a minute. I want to soak up some more rays.”
    She smiled once more and I anxiously watched her feet sink into the mud.
    “Eww! The sea smellz of rotten eggz!” Cerise complained.
     
    Chuckling, I closed my eyes, reminisced back to the day when I first learned she was sleeping with her boss. I ignored it for years, trying to reason with myself it might not be true, but I was unable to keep my demons at bay. One evening, I gave in and checked her cell phone. I found dirty messages and plenty of them. It must've gone on for months. She hadn't even made the effort of deleting them.
    Anyway, the time of reckoning had come. I only had one hobby since childhood. Botany. The only thing I ever excelled at. I was an expert when it came to plants and weeds.
    In my early years at the university, I was intrigued to discover that seaweed could generate toxic fumes of hydrogen sulphide when it rots, a colourless and highly poisonous gas—which incidentally smelled of 
rotten eggs
.
    Armed with this knowledge, I carefully plotted Cerise's demise. This area of Brittany was renowned for killer seaweed incidents. Several animals had died here a couple of months ago and if my presumptions were correct, small pockets of hydrogen sulphide were still trapped in the beach mud. Hopefully, they'd escape when disturbed.
    Cerise called from down below, “Arrre you coming den?”
    “In a little while, you keep walking and enjoy the swim!” I replied.

Pins and Needles
    The moon reposed in the night sky, illuminating the factory's cluttered car park. A polished, liquorice-coloured Mercedes circled it like a serpent. After an interval, the motorist triumphed and wedged between a Mazda and a rusty old Peugeot. Key turned and the ignition died. The shadowy driver bowed his head—sighing. A change of profession blessed him with a fresh start, yet he felt jittery.
    Glancing at the object swinging from the rear view mirror, he brushed his rumpled fingers against it, muttering words in a foreign tongue. More cars whisked round the curve, blazing radiant lights and stealing his vision, temporarily. He released the token and gathered his rucksack. The man stepped towards the factory's ominous doors.
    “Hey! Send Andy down here, will ya? One of the machines stopped again!” John hollered, his ears ringing from the manic industrial noise. The mushy ear defenders irritated him. The mechanic nodded and John veered around, eagerly heading to the canteen. Glancing at the time, his stomach rumbled