“What I want, is for you to leave me the fuck alone!”, she said.
She walked into the kitchen, and she could hear him baying at her from the living room.
The same constant, unending spittle of words that he wheezed out every night as he sat on his padded ass on the recliner.
“If I didn’t make him dinner every night he would slowly die,” she thought.
She turned towards the back door and took her coat off the hanger.
It was a rainy night, and her coat was wrong, and she was wearing her house slippers, but who cares because everyone wears some version of them outside anyway.
Off to the bar.
She knew it was not a “conscious” or “present” choice.
Meditation would be better of course, but who can sit quietly with a madman in the house?
Keys in the ignition.
Engine turning over.
Down to that gross place where nice ladies like her never go; she passed it all the time on her way to Erewhon.
Opening the door, the scent of stale beer and all the stereotypical smells hit her nose.
What she wanted deeply inside of her was a Baileys on ice with a Fireball chaser.
Settling into the duct-taped stool, the faux leather cracked from too many hopeless people downing poison to forget their fucked-up lives, she turned her attention to a punk band in the corner.
The lead singer was female, they all were. Or so she assumed.
Skirts that were too high, hair in multiple colors. The girl was screaming into the mic and the lyrics were indistinguishable.
She felt a serenity come over her.
The noise and the Baileys felt like calming milk.
She was getting drunk, and everything about her life felt very funny.
And infuriating.
Her stupid husband was calling her cell phone.
It kept beeping and lighting up.
She wanted to throw it across the room, so she marched up to the stage and tried to hand it to the singer girl.
Surely, she would do it!
The girl just hurled herself around as she sang, ignoring her silent plea.
She ended up tossing it in a garbage can and knew, unfortunately, that it would be crushed and broken in a landfill, the screen looking like a spiderweb.
She went outside and smokers were standing in a Camel Light and Marlboro haze.
The sweet stench of nicotine filled her lungs.
Liberation rolled up in a formaldehyde stick.
She remembered the last time she felt free.
About 20 years ago; graduating college.
She was so optimistic that she would “make it.”
Her parents were kind and didn’t push her too hard.
Looking down at her sensible tunic and dry hands she felt something peculiar.
A rising tingle in her pussy.
“But what is that”, she thought.
The feeling got stronger, and the people around her were all standing in doorways.
“Oh,” she thought, “we’re having an earthquake. I’m going to die here.”
Across the street, buildings were shifting, and everyone was running, and she clung to a streetlamp which she was sure was a stupid decision.
She closed her eyes, pressed herself to the pole like she used to do when she was little, and let the reverberations sink in.
Soon enough there were big cracks in the street, terrifying ones if she had cared, that were pointing 20 feet up in the sky.
It was quiet, except for all the screaming, and sirens.
She thought, “This is serious. “
Walking home, swinging the Gucci knockoff she bought at Marshalls around her wrist, she felt like whistling but thought it inappropriate considering the mayhem.
Turning a corner, her house was just a few doors down.
It looked like a pancake topped with a bunch of strawberries!
The second floor was rubble, a mess of wood, and detritus from her life, its possessions scattered. The broken water pipes drizzling everything, like pouring maple syrup on a sweet stack.
“Somewhere underneath,” she thought, “he’s there.”
“Ma’am is this your house?”, the fireman asked.
She noticed he had kind, very blue eyes.
“No, nope it’s not”, she said.
He turned away, running down the street, to assist others.
Her decision was made.
“Off we go”, she whispered.
Past the highway, through the field, into the forest, and along the stream.
Anonymous.