Spite

"Also, we can quickly cut off power to the controllers if necessary," the glibbest producer told us, pointing to a double pole single throw switch in the control room.

While Brit and I still weren't happy about it, we went along.

I didn't like the fiendish looks on Rich's and Joy's faces as they started their climbs up the ladders. Brit had talked to Joy, and I to Rich, beforehand asking them to please be careful and to not let pride or spite (despite the name of the show) overcome their judgment – they didn't really want to kill each other. They nodded agreement, but the looks in their eyes belied it.

Joy and Rich gleefully operated their controllers to gradually pivot the other's platform toward the water. They were having trouble holding on after just fifteen or twenty degrees of pivotal movement, but were still at it despite that. Once the platforms slowly got to thirty degrees Brit and I started yelling at them to push the red "end" button on their controller, which would pivot the other's platform back up, but neither paid us any heed.

As part of the drama, the producers had a live audience who was making lots of noise around the shark pool. It was hard to hear exactly whether they were yelling encouragement or reason, but it was loud. So loud that Rich and Joy couldn't hear the producers when they started yelling up to them to push the red buttons as they feverishly waved their arms trying to get their attention.

Suddenly, first Rich, then only two seconds later Joy, fell into the pool. Screams loud enough to be heard even over the din of the crowd quickly followed as blood colored the water in the main tank.

In a series of events that made the disaster at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant look like a well thought-out event the door opening from the main tank to the tank separated by the transparent wall malfunctioned, the circuits providing power to the controllers – unbeknownst to the producers – had capacitors in them so that throwing the main switch didn't immediately cut off power, and the prods the divers had were ineffective against the hungry bull sharks.

Before Rich and Joy could be pulled from the tank, both had lost an arm and a leg and had numerous bites on their torso, and one of the divers had also lost a leg. By the time that they got to the hospital both Rich and Joy had bled to death, and doctors barely saved the diver's life.

The only thing that kept me from going ballistic was attending to Brit, who was sobbing uncontrollably as we witnessed our parents' destruction due to their ultimate act of spite combined with the gross mechanical and electrical failures of the production equipment.

The joint funeral for Rich and Joy was the saddest day of my life. The only two consolations that I had were that I still had Brit, and that before the ceremony Alicia told me that she loved me – and I realized that I loved her too, we didn't have just a great sexual relationship.

Needless to say, my parents' episode of Spite never aired, although several other episodes did, viewed by almost record cable audiences.

Epilogue:

Alicia's attorney was not just a ball buster when it came to negotiating contracts. The legal complaint she filed detailing the gross negligence of the producers of Spite, which she threatened to make public, got Brit and I settlements that, combined with the inheritance from our parents, would be sure to support us the rest of our lives if we were anywhere close to reasonable in how we handled money.

After one football season in college I gave up my scholarship; there was something in my life way more important than football. I was head-over-heels in love with Alicia, and she with me, and despite our differences in age we wanted to be together. With a baby on the way Alicia quit work, we got married with Brendon as the best man and Brit as one of the bridesmaids, bought a house in the town where I am now attending my senior year in college, and up to this writing Alicia, I, and our bouncing baby girl, have lived happily ever after.

Brit used her settlement and inheritance to start up a non-profit (that I have contributed to) that provides marital counseling to couples that can't afford it, teaching them trust and communication instead of spite. Brit herself runs her own profitable chemical business.

One thing is for sure – if Alicia I have any issue whatsoever we communicate and trust. We may have subsequent problems, especially in view of our age disparity, but spite will never be one of them.