The Taste of a Liar's Debt

Folklore

The Magistrate was cold before the bread touched his skin. He had been a man of ledgers and lean years for others; the air around his bed smelled of stale ink and dormant dust. I used the traditional rye, salted heavily to scrub the palate. The first piece of bread carried the taste of copper. Not the clean scent of a new coin, but the bitter, blood-like tang of old money held too long in a sweaty palm. It was an abrasive flavor, one that scratched at the back of the throat. As I progressed, the taste curdled. It became a thick, cloying sweetness reminiscent of rotten honey, a syrup that refused to be swallowed, clinging to the soft palate with a desperate, suffocating weight. Underneath the honey lay a vein of sulfur. It burned slow, a low smolder that settled in the pit of the stomach. With every swallow, I felt the Magistrate's lightness. His expression, previously pinched by a lifetime of hoarding, slackened into a vacant peace. The debt was no longer his. The aftermath is always the same. My limbs feel leaden, and my breath carries a metallic edge that no amount of water can rinse away. I have spent the morning retching into the soil, bringing up a bile that tastes of rusted iron and spoiled sugar. The weight is mine now; I will carry his greed in my marrow until the next feeding washes it thin.