The Stool

by Luke Wilson

I buy a stool from a car boot sale; it has three legs, is upholstered in sweaty faux leather, and has a button in the middle of the seat. I get the seat home, sit on it, and yelp with pain as a sharp object breaks the skin of my behind. I run my fingers over the red seat of the stool, and I find that to one side of the button, a pin like object is embedded in the stuffing in such a way that it doesn't protrude through the leather unless pressure is applied. Gingerly, I investigate further, and find it to be a syringe which is half full of an unknown brown liquid. I take the syringe to the police, and they send off its contents to be analysed as a matter of urgency. When the results come back, they tell me that the syringe was contaminated with the HIV virus.

6S

Luke Wilson works as a software developer for a semantic web company, holds a degree in theoretical physics which he doesn't use, and spends some of his spare time trying to write.