Friday Flash – The Straw

The Straw

He wished he’d never opened that box.

Even though he was in the living room at the other end of the house, on a different floor, with the television loud and a whisky in his hand, he could still see it. He could picture that box lurking in the back of the wardrobe where he’d thrown it. The lid hadn’t even been put back on properly. She’d know he had found it.

The liquid hit the back of his throat and he winced as it burnt its way down. The single malt had run out days before and he was reduced to this; sitting on the edge of his sofa, knocking back gulping whisky meant for cocktails, waiting for his wife to come home and the divorce to begin.

The key in the lock. The slam of the door, the keys dropped into the bowl. Then the sound of the dog pounding down the hallway, sliding on the new wooden floor and hitting the radiator.

“Hi Sid! Silly dog, still not used to it are you? You have to slow down. Yes,” sounds of licking that make his upper lip wrinkle upwards. “I love you too. Where’s Daddy?”

“I’m not his ‘Daddy’, you stupid cow,” he mutters.

“Hi,” she says brightly, thrusting a bottle of wine before her as the dog bursts in, his tail beating a path of turbulent air for her arrival. “I got pizza to go with it. Do you want Pepperoni or Meat Feast?” She’s looking at the wine label as she asks the question, she doesn’t see his knuckles go white as he squeezes the glass. “Well?”

“Pepperoni,” he spits and she breezes out again, oblivious. “You bitch,” he adds beneath his breath.

He listens to the sounds from the kitchen. How can she make so much noise unwrapping pizza? Humming and banging and crashing and the damn dog chewing the squeaky toy she bought just to piss him off.

He slams the glass down, marches to the kitchen.

“Hell of a day,” she sighs, switching the oven on. “Would you believe -”

“Leanne,” he says, cutting across the babble. “I know about your…” he struggles to find the words. “I found that box. In the wardrobe.”

“What box?”

“The one you were hiding from me.”

She looks at him, all innocence. Oh, she’s good.

“The one with the pictures of -” her hand flies to her mouth and a scarlet flush blooms across her cheeks. “Yeah,” he scowls. “That one.”

The only sound is the dog quietly savaging the rubber bone, a constant barrage of protesting squeaks.

“How long?” he manages to ask finally, fists balling so tight that his nails dig into his palms.

“You’re over-reacting,” she replies, turning her back on him to fuss over the pizzas. “It’s just a -”

“How long has it been there!” he yells and the dog stops chewing to growl at him.

“A couple of months, that’s all. And anyway, you shouldn’t have been going through my private things!”

“You shouldn’t need to keep things away from me!”

“If you weren’t such a control freak I wouldn’t have to!” she yells back and the dog’s hackles rise. “You know you’re being ridiculous, don’t you?”

“I thought we understood each other,” he lowers his voice, glancing at the dog.

“Don’t make me the bad guy,” she hisses back. “There’s some thing wrong with you, not me. Why don’t you stop and think about why that box is even in there?”

The question hangs between them as the thermostat light blinks out on the oven.

“It doesn’t matter, you know how I feel, you should -”

“Oh shut up Tony!” she snaps.

“That’s it,” he shouts back. “It’s him or me!”

Her mouth sets in a tight line as her fists ball up like his to rest on her hips.

“Go then, piss off back to your mother.”

She smirks at him as he tries to think of a parting shot, but he’s so angry he just stares at her balefully before storming out of the room to go and pack.

The bag is only half full on the bed when he hears her coming up the stairs. This apology had better be good, he thinks, stuffing in another shirt. When she enters, he stands back from the bed so she can come over and admit her guilt, but instead, she walks to the wardrobe.

Dumbfounded, he watches as she retrieves the box from the back, looks him straight in the eye as she marches past with it held in front of her, like she’s carrying home the science prize. He balls his fury up into his fists, forces himself to punch the rest of the clothes into the bag, rather than her face.

Within minutes he’s packed. Deciding to give her one last chance, he goes downstairs and pauses outside of the kitchen at the sound of her voice.

“Looks like it’s just you and me again Sid,” she says to the dog, like that stupid mutt could understand her. “You can have the Pepperoni.”

He can hear her opening the box, and can’t stop himself from peering through the gap in the doorway. He watches her remove the lid and smile, lifting out the DVD that rests on top. Her fingers play over his face, the BBC logo, the letters of ‘Pride and Prejudice’. “And you and I can have the Meat Feast, Mr Darcy.”

 * * *

An earlier draft of this flash was written for a competition but I like it more after the reworking. I hope you like it; I wanted to see if I could write something that wasn’t dark, disturbing or ‘subtley unsettling’ as one of my short story club members describes my stories. Still ended up with a mad protagonist, but there you go.

Tagged as: flash fiction, Friday Flash, short story club