A Case of Greed

10 Word exercise #6

Chocolate, candles, hurricane, beach, lei, disestablishment, fissure, schizophrenic, lava, tectonics

He wasn’t exactly ecstatic to leave discussions of tectonic plates, lava rock and fissures behind for the next two weeks but Job Townsend was taking his wife, Philomena, on vacation to Hawaii. It wouldn’t be easy to spend time in the state built on old lava rock and not be doing research, but the last thing his wife needed was to hear him talk shop.

She’d recently been given a diagnosis, a diagnosis that could end her career, of being schizophrenic, something he found hard to believe and had told the court-appointed Dr Price as much before walking out of his office holding a crushed Philomena by the arm.

Philomena Townsend had been on the cutting edge of some pretty dicey work at her law firm. The very rich defendant was attempting to claim disestablishment in the paternity suit the L.L.P Law firm had taken on on behalf of his ex-wife - a long-time client; a case Phil (as her colleagues called her) was on the verge of winning before her first and only, but very embarrassing, episode.

Standing before the judge and jury, primed for her closing argument, she went from Hurricane Phil to a puddle of tears leaving a path of destruction in her wake. When her world finally righted itself, it was to find Judge Wright banging his gavel, ordering her to be removed from his court room, and she was not to be allowed back in without an assessment by Dr Price.

Job had that ‘there’s something rotten in the State of Denmark’ feeling about the whole situation. He’d had to promise Dr Price that he would watch over her carefully and see that she got her medication for everyone’s safety to get him to agree to Job taking her out of State on vacation. With Job by her side, and the letter of permission from Dr Price, she’d walked through the doors of L.L.P Law and taken a two-week vacation...which they were only too happy to grant. All but one of her Associates treated her as they always had, with dignity and respect.

A lei hanging around her neck and the smell of the beach hanging in the air would go a lot farther than the medication Job left sitting at home on the nightstand. He placed the candles one by one about their room as his wife lay sleeping on the balcony facing the ocean, and as he lit the candles each in turn he pictured the fire he was about to light under the bottoms of the key characters that had put in motion the plot to discredit his wife.

One for Judge Wright, one for Dr Price, one for Senator Platz – the defendant, and saving the biggest and best for last, was for Ms. Holly Ryan. Ms. Holly Ryan, the Junior Associate and false friend secretly yearning to be in Philomena’s shoes, also the slime keeping Senator Platz’s bed warm and the one responsible for sending the box full of 'good luck' chocolate to his wife that when analyzed contained the hallucinogenic that set their whole plan in motion in front of witnesses.

Ms. Holly Ryan didn’t know it yet, but by the time he was done, it would take her and her cohorts a lifetime to be rid of that one bite of chocolate...