“I’ve killed my wife,” he said. “We can be together.” She pulled out her badge. “Bad thing to say when you’re dating a cop.”
Tag: marriage
#quikfic 93
She had wanted out for years, but we had been good once. I still wasn’t ready to give up on us. The basement door stayed locked.
Fiction: ‘If You Really Want One’
“Isn’t this damn line ever going to move?”
“No, Erik, it isn’t,” Lee said. “This is hell, and we’ll be standing here for all eternity. Just to annoy you.”
“I believe it,” Erik said.
“Erik,” Bobby said, “I know we dragged you here against your will, but try to have just the tiniest bit of fun, huh?”
“Yeah, try not to make us wish we were dead, too,” Arthur pleaded.
“I’m told that the dead have very few problems.”
His friends sighed; Erik the Grim had spoken.
Through the tightly packed mass of people thronging the state fair, Erik brightened suddenly as he spotted an old man holding a fresh caramel apple by its stick.
Fiction: Rowboat
Judd glanced up from the ground he was plowing and saw movement on the river. He let go of the horse’s traces and trudged down to the riverbank.
He glared as an empty rowboat glided smoothly down the middle of the river. For a moment, he thought about letting it go on by, but he grudgingly doffed his boots and swam out to catch the boat and guide it onto dry land.
Fiction: Flight
Karen’s single bag had been checked in. Her purse had been searched, and she had been irradiated to ensure she wasn’t a bomb-laden jihadist. Now she waited for her flight to be called.
I’m finally going to do it, she thought. I’m finally getting away from him.
Fiction: Almanacs
Roy saw the new Chaffinch’s Almanacs sitting near the cash register. He paid for the odds and ends he was getting at the hardware store and plucked two of the free almanacs from the displays.
Chaffinch’s was the only almanac sexist enough to publish his and hers editions, in blue and pink covers. The women’s edition contained all sorts of stuff about that time of the month and children and homemaking that the men in Chaffinch’s target audience were certain they didn’t need to know.
Roy picked up a pink almanac for Enid so that if she saw him with his blue-covered almanac she couldn’t complain about his not getting her an almanac. Married life was full of little preemptory strikes like that, he mused.
Fiction: Bobblehead
Harry sat alone in the little house. It seemed larger now that Juanita was gone, which Harry liked. When she had lived there, they had fought day in and day out, and the house felt more like clothing that had shrunk in the wash. Now there was room for Harry to swing his arms and breathe deeply.
A car drove by the house. The vibration from the road rattled the old windows just slightly and rocked a little end table. A folded index card under the back leg of the table would have kept it from moving, but Harry had never noticed that the table wobbled.
What Harry did notice was the circus clown bobblehead on the table. It had been Juanita’s, and Harry supposed she had left it as her final gift to him. He didn’t want a farewell gift from Juanita, but a farewell gift had to be treated with respect.
Fiction: Road Hazard
Stan and Peggy hadn’t taken any food on their trip, so they were hungry from the first day of being snowbound in the blizzard. On the second day, their carefully shepherded supply of cold coffee ran out; they couldn’t gather snow because the electric motors for the windows were frozen. On the third day they ran out of gasoline and could no longer even risk carbon monoxide poisoning to keep warm.
A few hours later, he confessed.
“Peggy,” he stammered in the cold, “I can’t die with this on my conscience. I’ve been having an affair with Lora. It’s been going on for almost five years. I even took her on the Acapulco trip, the one I told you the company wouldn’t let us take spouses on. And your mother’s diamond necklace? The one I said was stolen? I gave it to Lora. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
Peggy just stared at him, too bitterly cold to fully grasp the enormity of his words.
She awoke in the hospital a day later. Turning her head to her left she could see Stan in the next bed. She didn’t remember being rescued, but she did recall Stan’s confession.
She sat up in her bed and gingerly placed her heels on the floor. That didn’t hurt too badly and she hobbled the few steps to Stan’s bed.
“Stan?” she said softly. “Stan? Are you awake?”
“Hmmm?”
He came to consciousness quickly enough when Peggy yanked out his catheter.
Once the screaming had faded to a dull whimper, she told him, “And I’m just getting warmed up.”
Fiction: This Diamond Ring
Sandra tugged at her ring and eventually got it off of her finger. She threw it at Delbert, who lay wheezing softly on the living room floor. It missed his face but landed in plain sight.
“That little thing isn’t even worth trying to resell,” she growled.
He looked at the ring and remembered how gleeful he had been eighteen years before when he went to Kavalitz’ Jewelry and picked out the nicest wedding ring his budget could withstand. It would have to suffice; the matching engagement ring was far too expensive. Mr. Kavalitz assured Delbert he didn’t mind breaking up the set.
Delbert had taken Sandra out to dinner that night. After they both had declined the waitress’ offer of dessert, Delbert had reached into his suit pocket. “Perhaps I could interest you in this, though.” He opened the box and handed it to Sandra.
Fiction: Dear John
He found the note lying on top of his favorite coffee mug.
Dear John,
I’m leaving you for Stephen Kotzenpillar. I can’t stand another minute in our alleged marriage — especially the stale, boring, unimaginative, unexciting, unfulfilling, so-called sex. I want out, and I’m getting out.