Married Life

“Honey, I’m home!”

“Good evening, my darling.”

“You look as though you haven’t moved since I left for the office.”

“Ah, but how good is doing absolutely nothing, my dear.”

“Yes, doing nothing is superb but we can’t all be that free.”

“Yes... someone has to do the work.”

“And do it I shall.”

“Indeed, dearest.”

“Speaking of work, that reminds me, I must tell you of the day I had. It is truly a strange tale.”

“Why don’t I pour a glass of wine for the both of us, this story needs proper accompaniment.”

“Yes, a swell idea. You see, it was a particularly odd day, today. It was raining cats and dogs from the minute I got in the car but by the time I parked the car in the office, it was blue skies above and not a raincloud in sight.”

“And considering that the drive is only five minutes down the road, that is truly a bizarre occurrence.”

“But the oddities did not stop there, no siree. There were not one, not two, but five simultaneous paper jams in the office, which isn’t exactly an oddity, more a regular occurrence however the paper coming out was bright green rather than the white that it started out as.”

“You know, I think I heard of a similar thing happening when I was working overseas, I’m sure there is a logical explanation, but still, it is odd.”

“I’m not done yet though. The peculiarities continue with me finding a four-leaf clover in the crack of a footpath and then promptly having a black cat dart in front of me into an alleyway on my right, which seems like a rather paradoxical sequence of events, I’d say.”

“You would think that the good luck from the four-leaf clover cancels out the bad luck of the black cat.”

“Well, whatever fortune it brought me, good or bad or a bit of both, my strange day culminated in the same weather pattern that began the day. Intense rain for about five minutes, and then followed by, as soon I was out of the car in the driveway, clear skies.”

“How peculiar.”

“Yes, peculiar sums up the day perfectly. And your day, I’m assuming, was the same as per usual.”

“Terribly boring.”

“Well, That’s what happens when you just sit there all day. You should find a hobby.”

“But, hobbies do tend to be for the lively.”

“Best to leave living life to me then, dear.”

“Now, what is for dinner?”

“Hmmmmm, I kind of feel like going out tonight. It’s a Friday, why not start the weekend with a bang?”

“Yes, going out it is.”

“Where to go, that’s the problem.”

“There is that burger place just around the corner.”

“Or that new Italian place that just opened in Williamstown. It looks pretty good.”

“Now Charles dear, you haven’t said a word this entire time since I walked in that door, or even offered a single suggestion. It’s bad form, you know. Of course, it is common knowledge that the dead don’t make for particularly good conversationalists but still, I may have killed you, but until I find a new toy to play with, you are still my husband and the key to being a good husband is active listening, which honestly, you were never the best at, even when you were alive. You see, active listening isn’t just hearing but listening, interjecting and commenting when appropriate but allowing your conversation partner the time they need to say what they must.”

“When you were alive, you just wouldn’t. Stop. Talking. Tsk, tsk. You never even left the slightest gap to let me, your poor silent wife, get a single word in. So I had to kill you, I hope you can understand that. I had no other choice. I had to kill you, to keep you quiet. I had to kill you, so you would know how I felt for so many years. There were times when I forgot what my voice sounded like, all the while you thundered around like Zeus, so ridiculously in love with the sound of your own voice that you never shut up. You needed to learn what it meant to be silenced.”

“I was never meant to be silent. And I will never be silent again, even after I see you, one day, from across the wide river of death.”

“For now though, until I feel like it, you’ll stay here. Thank god that you are practically a recluse, otherwise, people would have surely noticed that you were missing. Naturally, I will have to tell the police eventually, I’d rather not have a rotting corpse stinking up my home. And it’s not like anyone will be surprised when I tell them the lie that you decided that death was a better alternative to the half-life you were surviving, so you took matters into your own hands. Dead men tell no tales, but I will. I’ll play the grieving widow and you will be the forgotten boy. But don’t worry, I will always remember you. You won’t be forgotten by me. Never. I will always remember the day when I heard true silence for the first time in the twenty years that we’ve been married. The day that I killed you was the day your voice was erased from the world forever and mine… mine boomed as loud the trumpets of heaven. At last, my silence was - is broken.”

“And your voice will never be heard again.”

“And you should decide that haunting me is the way you should spend your eternity, know that try as you might, you will not silence me again. If I cannot shout words, I will whisper. If words don’t come, I will scream. But I will not be silent. Never again. And I am not afraid of you anymore. So do your worst.”

“Now, husband dearest, I am going out. I think Italian food sounds nice, don’t you? Yes, goodness knows that I deserve a night out. It isn’t often that a girl gets a promotion and murders her husband in the same week, but, as they say, there’s a first time for everything.”

“Goodbye, my love. Don’t wait up.”