In Poems & Fiction

 

It seemed that their break-up had occurred as long ago as the Beatles’, but somehow they were still married: man and wife– still living in the same house. Janice hated Jim more than she hated herself, and she especially hated it when Jim, smelling of 30-weight motor oil and greased machinery, arrived home from the plant, immediately turned on the TV, and sank into that La-Z-Boy of his, which looked to her like a leather woman with four legs, lying, spread eagle, under an overall-clad, soon-to-be snoring, mechanic.

It was obscene.

Janice hated sports and men and recliners, and she especially hated the 17 years of silent war, which she grudgingly admitted to herself had been the empty shell of their ‘marriage.’ She hated everything about Jim– his clothes, his scent, his sexless sex; she hated everything, except her husband’s gun collection.

As she opened the gun case in the basement where Jim kept his hunting rifles, a vengeful smirk jagged just beneath her livid eyes, “He’ll empty that damn dishwasher at least once, before he dies.

 

 

Appeared at Fiction at Work

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