The Dress Makes the Woman

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

The Dress Makes the Woman

By Plot Roach

I started out the day looking for a Halloween costume. And then I was chased by a goblin wearing a bear skin rug.

I can explain, really.

This whole thing started when a friend and I decided to go shopping for Halloween costumes in the Garment District in L. A. Maggie told me that we could find something really cool and realistic, but also really cheap at the same time. And since Halloween only comes once a year, and I’m in between jobs at the moment, cheap was in my price range. We took the Metro -link (her treat) and headed off in the direction of industrial sized buildings with a few dollars and lots of hope in our hearts.

She headed for a place called “Fred’s Frocks” she’d heard about from a coworker who liked to cross dress. The man was the size of a football quarterback, but shrugged on woman’s wear on the weekends to sing at a local club. I had seen him perform once, and Fred’s Frocks had done wonders for the man, transforming him into someone that put supermodels into shame for lack of femininity.

But then again, I’d swear half of the Victoria’s secret catalogue was really male anyway..

But getting back to my story…

Maggie pulled me into the shop in a whirlwind of gasping, whining and shrieking. And that was just her reaction to the clothes she saw on the racks. “OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODTHISISSOCUTE!” She screamed in one tremendous breath, brandishing a dress that looked appropriate for an Amazon warrior, but sequined for Barbie. I wasn’t that impressed, but then I’m not really into sequins.

As Maggie plunged like an intrepid explorer through racks of brightly colors dresses, I headed for the back, where something in the shadows had caught my eye.

You know that feeling when you see something, but aren’t really sure what you saw? And you know that if you don’t investigate it, you might miss out on something big. Well, this was my big moment. And I didn’t realize how big it was going to get.

I walked up to a rack, mostly old coats and robes when the owner, Fred, sauntered up to me. He was a thin man, built like a reed, but had the attitude of a heavyweight boxer. It made sense, you would kind of have to have that feeling about you if you were going to sell stuff like this in this part of the city. The top half of him wore a lab coat and the bottom half looked like it belonged to a homeless bum, the gleaming white of his coat glaring against battered sneakers peeking out under the bottoms of stained and ripped jeans. “is there something that I can help you with, my dear?” he asked.

“Oh, no.” I said. “I’m just looking. Something caught my eye is all.”

“Hmmm.” Fred said and then began to paw through the rack of clothes. “I’d say that you’re fit to be a princess this Hallows.”

“Me? No.” I said. “I can’t stand the type.” And it was true. I was always a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl. I never donned a tutu, a ball gown or a frilly dress of any kind. It just wasn’t my kind of thing. But then Fred pulled out a dress wrapped in plastic and my heart fell to my feet.

“I think that this one will do the trick.” Fred said, tearing off the plastic and holding the dress in the sunlight that filtered through a nearby window so that it played across the fabric. And I swear to you that the dress looked like it was made out of twilight itself. Beautiful hues of deep blues and hazy purples drifted through the cloth, every now and again a thread of silver gave the smallest hint of a star that you might see in the sky above.

“Ah, yes.” Fred congratulated himself. “We have a winner.”

“I don’t know.” I said, backing slightly away. “I might not have enough money.” I KNEW that I didn’t have enough money. That dress was beautiful and well out of my price range. Looking at it I went from a Zen state of happiness to deep regret. Even if it did fit, it would like putting a wedding gown on a cow. I wasn’t “ugly” by any means, but my thighs could put a draft horse to shame.

Fred read the hesitation on my face and proceeded to escort me to the nearest dressing room. I tried to argue, but he was having none of it. “Go try it on at least.” he said. “You’ll never know what it’s like to be a damsel in distress if you never get into the dress.”

I took the dress and headed for the little wooden room, feeling like I was on my way to the gallows. Things this nice weren’t made for the likes of me, but for some Homecoming Queen with the charisma and the body to pull it off. Still, I took the dress and walked forward, locking the door behind me.

“Don’t forget this.” Fred said, handing over an envelope.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“You’ll see.” he said. “But open it only after you’ve gotten into the dress.”

I sighed and shrugged off my jeans and t-shirt, but left on my combat boots. Yes, I’m THAT kind of girl. As I left my clothes on the floor, I pulled the gown over my head, smelling a faint dustiness on the fabric that reminded me of used bookstores and childhood adventures. Once the dress was on I chanced a look at myself in the mirror.

I hated to admit it, but I didn’t look half bad.

Aside from the stray hairs that pulled themselves out of my ponytail and the combat boots, I could almost be recognized as a feminine entity. I snickered at my reflection and tore open the envelope. Inside was a note in spidery scrawl.

The dress is a gift. It will serve you well in the days to come when you are rescued and taken to your far away land and your happily ever after. As unlikely at it seems, you will find yourself in a different world from the one you just left. I believe every girl should be a princess at least once in her life. Now it is your turn. Make it count.

Ps. I hope you kept the combat boots on, you’ll need them to get away from the ambush.

Love, Fred

Huh? I thought. “Is this some kind of joke you play on all the customers?” I asked Fred when I opened the door.

I lifted my eyes from the note and realized that I wasn’t in the store anymore, I was in a forest. The changing room was a small square box leaning up against a tree.

“Well this can’t be right.” I told myself. I walked back into the ‘changing room’ and closed the door behind me, hoping that it would take me back to the store. I tried opening and closing the door several times. It did not work.

“Now what?” I asked the woods around me. I started walking. What else could I do? Dusk began to settle in amongst the trees and I heard voices behind me. “Hello?” I called out. “Is someone there?”

The voices got closer, though I didn’t recognize the language And then I saw who was speaking and I understood why.

They were roughly a head taller than myself and green from head to foot. Rat-like faces with yellow eyes evaluated me in my dress as I gazed at their mottled flesh barely clad in the skins of animals. The small was overwhelming and I did not know if this was their natural musk or the remnants of flesh still attached to their ‘clothing’.

I was not about to sit around and find out. Especially when one in a skunk skin loincloth sneered at me and prepared to throw his spear at me. I ran like there was no tomorrow. Which I knew that there would not be if these things caught me.

My mind raced as my feet flew beneath me. What the hell were they? Where was I and how could I get out of here? I could only think of them as ‘goblins’, since a steady diet of fantasy fiction had educated me to the xenobiology of far away places that never existed.

The further I ran, it seemed the likelier I would be to survive, as Skunk crotch gave up the chase almost immediately and two more of them fell away after the first few minutes. The only hunter left was a goblin in a bearskin. And his chances weren’t so good, since he was wearing the whole skin like an ill fitting costume. Where the others had used the skin as a loin cloth, this one had chose to wear the whole bear. Ursine limbs flapped in the breeze kicked up in the chase and I prayed that the long dead bear might avenge its death by tripping him up in the floppy folds of its skin.

I thanked whatever gods of this land that might be listening that I had not taken off my combat boots as the ate up the ground beneath me. And I hoped that my version of Prince Charming would get off his noble fancy pants and rescue me soon, since I did not wish to be dinner and a date for the bear wearing goblin behind me..

Beware the Man with Pink Eyes

Beware the Man with Pink Eyes

By Plot Roach

Karen looked over at her sons watching television while sprawled upon the couch. A scream prompted the youngest, Max, to cover his eyes as the gore washed over the screen. Despite her better judgment she had let the seven year old boy watch the horror movie with his older brother, Kevin.

“Okay, I think that’s enough of this.” she said, lifting the remote control to change the channel.
“Awww Mommm.” Kevin moaned.

“No, really. I’m okay, Mom.” Max protested. “I know it’s not real.”

They continued to watch the movie in relative silence, broken only by an occasional gasp from Max or chuckling from Kevin. As the credits scrolled across the screen, it was time for Max to go to bed.
“Ummm…Can I stay up for a few more minutes?” he pleaded. “I can help put up the dishes in the kitchen.”
“And why are you so helpful tonight?” Karen asked.

“No reason.” he said.

“Could it be that my little brother is afraid of the zombies?” Kevin asked, wiggling his fingers in front of him as he lurched, zombie like, across the living room to his brother.

“Mom! Make him stop!” Max yelled.

“I’m coming to eat your brains Ahhhhhh!” Kevin said, as he continued his pursuit of Max.

“Enough already!” Karen yelled, separating the two of them. “Kevin, you go put the dishes up.”

“But Mom!”

“Just do it.” Karen hissed at him. “You put him up to watching this movie, even though you knew he’d be scared afterward and now you are going to make fun of him for it? I don’t think so. Go put the dishes away, champ, and we’ll talk about it later.”

“And as for you-” she started, pulling her youngest son onto her lap. “I hope you understand that the things on the television screen weren’t real and you shouldn’t be -”

“Scared. I know.” he said, tracing his big toe along the pattern of the carpet. “It’s just… different when it’s over, you know?”

“I know.” Karen sighed. “It’s funny when it’s on the screen., and we know that it isn’t real. But sometimes when we’re in the dark, stupid things fill up our heads so that we can’t think any better.”

“And they’re not real.” Max said.

“No they’re not.” Karen agreed.

“Who says?” Kevin called out from the kitchen. “I think they’re real. And I think that they’re going to eat you up in the night.”

“Kevin!” Karen yelled. “What’s gotten into you?”

He ducked his head around the corner, a dishtowel in one hand and a plate in the other. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” he said and grinned before disappearing back into the kitchen.

“You are grounded for a week, mister!” she yelled at him.

“It was still worth it!” he yelled back, muffled by running water.

When she turned back to max his eyes were wide with fear. “Oh, honey.” she said, brushing back the hair from his forehead. “There are no such things as zombies.”

“But what if there were?”

“Then you would know them right off the bat, by what they look like.”

“But that one lady in the movies didn’t know that her boyfriend was one until it ate her!” max argued. “They look just like us before they get all gross looking. How can we tell the difference before they eat us?”

“See what you started?” Karen asked Kevin as he sauntered back into the room, his chore accomplished. He made a face and then turned to his brother, ruffling the hair on the top of the boy’s head.

“Dude, do you remember what the first thing happens to someone who got bit in the movie when they were becoming a zombie?”

“They’re eyes got all weird.”

“Yeah, they went all red around the edges, then their eyelashes got all funky looking and then the pupils started to shift around into funny shapes.”

“Yeah…”

“Well, that could happen in real life, too.” Kevin said with a smug look and a wink to his mother. “So all you have to do is look at someone’s eyes to see if they’ve been infected.” he reasoned.
“Are you satisfied?” Karen asked, but wasn’t really sure herself of which son she was talking to. Max nodded, and then headed down the hallway to the bathroom to brush his teeth before bed.

There was a knock at the door and he rushed back to the living room, swinging it wide. “Daddy!” he called, before launching himself at the man.

“It’s good to see you too, sport.” his father laughed. “I’m so hungry I could just eat you up!”

The boy pulled away from his father and upon seeing the red rims around his father eyes, screamed and ran for his bedroom. “Zombie! Zombie! Dad is a zombie!”

“What’s that all about?” the father asked.
 “I’ll explain later.” Karen said, playfully smacking Kevin upside the head as he laughed himself breathless. “Right now I’ve got to keep Max from calling 9-1-1.”
“First I have the world’s longest business trip, then it turns out that I caught pink eye from one of the hotel’s guests. And then I get trapped at the airport so long, that I miss the bus. So I took a taxi home, not even stopping for dinner along the way, and this is the greeting I get?”

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

The Cat with the Ouroboros Tattoo

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

The Cat with the Ouroboros Tattoo

By Plot Roach
　

　When I came back to the apartment, Steve was sitting on the couch holding our cat Hugo. Both wore a pissed expression on their faces, at least I knew why the cat was unhappy, he was shaved. And as for Steve, I couldn’t guess.

“What’s up?” I asked, settling down on the couch next to them. The cat looked up at me as if to ask for help.

“Our cat has a tattoo.”

“No, really. I said. “What’s wrong.”

Steve gave me THE LOOK in response. It’s the same look that I give him whenever does or says something extraordinarily stupid. That way I don’t waste the breath giving him a lecture when I need it to chase after him and smack him upside the head. Being on the receiving end of that glare made me wonder if the offences he had committed in the past were worthy of such a punishment. And in case you were wondering, they were. There was this one time he tried to clean his hockey gear in the dishwasher, and… That’s another story. This one’s about the cat…

By the time that I had recovered from the glare, Steve was holding the cat out to me, his neck exposed. And right where the collar had sat against our fair feline’s skin, was a tattoo. “Oh.” was all I could say.

“I told you.” Steve snapped at me.

“Well… how did he get it?” I asked. “Was it before you adopted him?”

“No, I got him as a kitten right off the street. I’ve had him shaved before and never saw this.”

“How could he have gotten it without our knowledge?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” Steve said, stalking off into the kitchen to grab a beer.

“Did the vet say anything?”

“He laughed his ass off, and then gave me a lecture about animal cruelty. He said that if we did it again that he’d have to report us to the ASPCA and they would give us a fine and take the cat.”

“Did you tell him that we didn’t do this to our cat?”

“Yeah, but I think he was supposed to give me the lecture anyway, just in case. I’m pretty sure he knew I wasn’t lying when I freaked over seeing the tattoo.” Steve hissed, flipping the channel on the television. Poor Hugo, our beloved tattooed cat, sat in the hallway and proceeded to groom himself. He looked like a sad lion, the remainder of his orange striped hair in socks on his feet and in a mane around his head. The rest was shaved right down to his pale skin. We had it done every year around summertime in order to help him cope with the heat and to help prevent the fur balls in early Autumn.

If we had him tattooed on purpose, why would we have him shaved by someone who would report us? And why an Ouroboros? It made no sense. No one could be that cruel and stupid at the same time. I sat beside Steve, stealing an occasional sip of his beer as we waited for the documentary on polar bears to come back on. In the meantime we had to sit through car commercials, perfume ads and other assorted televised garbage. When the commercial came on about the insurance company showing a man getting into an accident because a circus monkey had been stowed in his back seat by a well meaning friend, Steve and I looked at each other and at the same time said: “Chance.”

“Chance was watching the cat last month when we were out of town at my mother’s house, remember?” Steve asked.

How could I forget. He ate the olives out of the pimento loaf, left midget foot fetish porn on my laptop and the cat kept throwing up what we assumed was bad tune at the time. Chance is one of “those guys”, the kind of person who is always on the last line of the list of people you trust. He was Steve’s friend in college, not that he actually took classes or graduated. He just stayed long enough to be banned from every frat house. And was arrested for giving the school’s mascot alcohol poisoning. In his defense, you would thing that a draft horse could drink more than a fifth of Jack Daniels and still remain standing.

Steve dialed Chance’s phone number and put our phone on speaker so that I could hear their conversation.
“Hello?”

“Hey, Steve!” Chance yelled into the phone, panting. “What’s up, buddy?” As soon as his voice could be heard over the phone’s speakers, Hugo ran for the bedroom and dashed under the bed.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Steve asked.

“Naw, I was just polishing the chrome.” Chance said. I gave Steve a puzzled looked and he pantomimed playing with his genitals. I made a face, but no sound. I didn’t want to alert Chance to my presence, since he would make an even bigger deal out of it in order to embarrass me.

“Listen… Um, did something out of the ordinary happen while you were watching our place last month?”

“Uhhhh…..No.”

“Something involving the cat, maybe?” Steve asked.

“Oh wow! I totally forgot. Yeah, with little Hogo.”

“Hugo.” Steve corrected.

“Yeah, Hugo. That’s what I said.”

“So…What happened?”

“Oh, I took the little dude out, since he seemed kind of down.”

“Kind of down -how?” Steve asked.

“Well he seemed unhappy.”

“He’s a cat, how can you tell.”

“Dude, he’s your pet. You should know.” Chance said. “He wouldn’t come out and play when I threw the ball or when I tried to feed him.”

“What did you feed him, Chance?”

“Well I tried the bologna in the fridge after I pulled the green crap out of it.”

I nodded, it explained the pimento loaf, at least.

“Then I took him out for a walk and we went downtown.”

“You walked him downtown?”

“No, dude. I put him on my bike and we drove. The chicks really dig a cat that can stay on a motorcycle, bro.”

I shook my head, no wonder Hugo was hiding from the man.

“And then what happened?” Steve asked.

“Well, at Barbarella’s Body Piercing, the new guy offered me a free tattoo.” Chance said. “But my parole office said that I have too many already and that’s why people won’t hire me, so I decided to pass on the love.”

“So you decided to give my cat a tattoo?”

“Oh, cool! you saw it?” Chance said, like a kid showing off his prized baseball card. “I have a poster of it in my room, man. And I thought it would be cool if little Horno-”

“Hugo.” Steve corrected.

“If Hugo could have something that would remind him of me.”

“You have an Ouroboros poster?”

“What the hell is that?”

“An Ouroboros is a serpent eating it’s own tail.” Steve explained.

“Sick, dude.” Chance said. “That isn’t what I wanted at all.”

“What did you mean to tattoo on our cat then?”

“Woody woodpecker.”

“I’ve got some bad news for you, Chance. Not only is it not Woody Woodpecker, it’s also on the back of his neck.”

“So the little dude can’t see it?”

“I’m afraid not, Chance.”

“Dude… I’ll have to get him one on his chest for Christmas then.”

Steve was speechless, so I answered for him. I hung up the phone.

Animal Fair

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Animal Fair

By Plot Roach

Samantha called me this afternoon wanting to know if I would work a psychic fair with her. “It’s the same as the people type fairs -but it’s for animals.” she said.

“Come again?” I asked.

“All the magic, psychic and healer type stuff that we human do, but on animals instead.”

“Psychic…animals?”

“No” she said. “Not psychic animals, psychic people working on animals… But I haven’t exploited the animal to person psychic healing angle yet, thanks for the idea.”

I felt my karma sink to the level of snail belly as I asked: “So what could you possibly do with animals -and why do you need my help?”

“Well you still read palms, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, for parties and stuff…”

“Well think about this: I give tarot card readings to our ‘clients’ and you can read their paws.” Samantha said, her voice had just a tingle of giggle to it. That was when I knew that I was in for it.

“What are you planning?” I asked.

“Nothing…much.”

“Spill it.”

“Okay, I’ve got this thing going with one of the other ‘psychics’.” she sighed into the phone. “I will do a reading for Fluffy and then if something is ‘wrong’, like poor health or a problem with a past life that hasn’t been resolved-”

“What? Fluffy could think she was Cleopatra’s cat and misses her buried ball of yarn?” I quipped.

“Like I was saying, if there is a problem, then I hand over a coupon to a ‘reputable reiki healer’-”

“Who just so happens to be at the same fair, of course.”

“Of course.” she said. “And I get a kickback.”

“Isn’t that a little underhanded?” I asked.

“It’s the way politicians do it.” she argued.

“Exactly.”

“Oh relax, do some deep breathing exercises or meditate.”

“Isn’t that what you are supposed to say to your clients?” I asked.

“You know what I mean.” she said.

“So what if the animal I’m doing a reading on doesn’t want to lift it’s foot for that long?” I asked.

“I already solved that!” she said. I had a sinking feeling. “Using modeling clay, we make an imprint of the animal’s paw that you can read and the client (animal’s human) can take home as a memento.”

“That works for dogs and cats -if you can find a cat the will stay still long enough without scratching out your eyes. But what about birds?”

“We use their feet.” she said. “It’s a smaller area to work with, but you CAN work with it. The same technique can be used for mice, ferrets and other small mammals.”

“What about turtles?” I asked.

“You can use their feet, or maybe the shell. I bet you could do some phrenology type thing on the shell.”

“Fish?” I asked.

“Who is really going to take their fish for a walk to a psychic animal fair?” she asked.

My silence over the phone was proof enough of the crazies who went to these things. “Fine.” she said. “Then do something with the way it swims in the tank, or mouth movements or something…”

“Oh, can I do a Vulcan Mind Meld with the glass fish bowl?” I asked.

“Be serious.” she said.

“You do realize that we’re talking about animal psychics -and you want ME to be serious?”

“Anyway… Now that we have all the possible animals down-”

“Nope, not even close.” I said. “There’s one animal you will never get a paw print to read off of.”

“What?” Samantha asked. “An elephant? A crocodile? Maybe someone will bring their pet zebra?”

“What will I have to work off of if someone brings their pet rock?” I asked.

“Oh I give up!” Samantha said, and hung up the phone.

Another End of the World

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Another End of the World

By Plot Roach

I didn’t realize what I was going to do with the rest of my life until it smacked me in the face and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. But first, you have to understand, I had missed the end of the world. And the only reason I found out about it at all is that a friend sent me an email about it.

Seriously.

I was at my desk, processing yet another batch of insurance payment forms when I checked my email. I usually get about three crappy emails from the company about what to expect in processing procedural changes, one daily ‘inspirational’ message form the founder of the company explaining why I should be thankful for my job, and a few messages from coworkers who find funny pictures of cats or babies on the internet and think that it’s their duty to pass it along like a virus.

This virus happened to be a story about a crazy old man who had gotten hit by lightning, started having visions, and convinced people in half a dozen states that the rapture would take them all to heaven at about noon today.

I got the email at 12:07 pm. I sighed, knowing that I wasn’t one of the saved, and read the rest of the article. It turns out that the prophet and his followers weren’t among the saved either. And that the rapture would be put off until the following month.

I laughed, deleted the email, and went about my work. How often has the end of the world happened and I never knew about it, much less it actually came to pass? Never. But I began to think very hard about it on the way home. The bus rocked, packed with strangers who had also been speared the torment of flames and brimstone. And the pain, when it hit me, was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Tears poured out of me to rival the rain that streaked the bus window beside me. Everything I had every been, or wanted to be and failed loomed out at me like a bloated corpse. I couldn’t ignore it anymore. If I had died today, I would not have been happy about where my life had ended up.

As a child, I put all of my dreams aside and listened to the ‘grown ups’ in my life who knew more than me. I figured that they had made the mistakes and knew the right path that I should take in life. It wasn’t art school, though it was my favorite subject and I had talent enough to win small local contests as a child. No, I plodded on the road that my family set before me, not one of happiness and fulfillment, but one that would pay the bills and keep a roof over my head.

In that instance I felt like a bird, whose wings have been clipped all its life, seeing a phoenix rise from the ashes and streak off into the night. Where was my passion, my fire? Could I still use my wings?

Once home, I pulled all that I could find of ‘art supplies’ onto the kitchen table to evaluate my remaining skills. Being that I had given up on my talent to be a ‘grown up’ myself, I couldn’t find much, so I would have to improvise.

I worked through the night. My skills were a bit fuzzy at first, but sharpened back into shape. The following morning found me streaked with ink, food coloring and bits of hardened salt dough. I raced through my morning tasks, washing away the evidence of my tinkering, though I could not push it away from my mind.

At work, all I could think of were techniques to strengthen my skills, the supplies that I would need to buy and the things that I wished to make. I could barely work through my normal pile of paperwork, and thanked the fates that were listening when the day ended and I could race home to begin my hobby yet again.

It went like this for a few weeks until I could stand it no longer. I quit my job, cashed in my vacation days and my retirement fund. I sold anything and everything of value that I would not be taking with me. And I packed a bag, just one. In it was a spare set of clothing, the rest was packed to the brim with watercolor blocks, pencils, pens, paper and other assorted bits I would need on my journey.

I called my mother from the payphone of the airport. “I’m going to India, mother.”

“What?!” What in the world are you doing?” she yelled into the phone. “You’ll ruin your life. What about your job? Your home?”

“It’s all gone, Mother.” I answered. “But my life is just beginning. I‘m going to travel the world and capture it in my art.” Then I hung up the phone before she could protest.

As I handed my ticket over to travel down the long hallway to the plane I realized that today was the day that had been rescheduled as the end of the world. Yet no asteroids fell from the heavens, no lakes of fire opened up to swallow me. All was well with the world, or as well as it could be. I sighed and set my bag in the overhead compartment, giving my seatmate a smile as I took my seat.

It was not the end of the world. But it was the end of the world as I knew it.

Curtains

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Curtains

By Plot Roach

He continued to stare at the cartoon truck drawn on the back of the cereal box when the sledgehammer came down on his head. He had expected it to hurt more than it had, but told himself that maybe his nerves were overwhelmed with too much pain for it to travel to his brain all at once, or that maybe, as a person lay dying, the pain slipped away like their soul did from their body.

He slipped away from his body, like a toddler’s foot in an oversized shoe, his body just didn’t fit anymore. He looked down in disgust, not in the man who was currently bludgeoning him, but at the mess he was making in the kitchen. Those stains will never come out of the curtains, he thought hazily. And Elizabeth worked so hard making them. But Elizabeth was long gone now, she had died of cancer five years back. His life had been lonely without her. So lonely in fact, that he had been unable to admit the loss to himself. But now with his body on the kitchen floor and his soul headed to the great hereafter, he felt the weight of that loss ease from him like a nine hundred pound boulder rolling away.

The last of the pain drifted away like the gossamer film of a bad dream. When you have no body, you have no pain, he reasoned with himself.

He began to float past the first floor and into the ceiling, but held himself back, looking at the mess he had become in the kitchen.

“Harold.” a faint voice called. And when he turned to face it, it was his beloved wife.

“I’ll be there in a second, Honey.”

“It’s over, Harold. It’s time to come with me.”

“I know, Elizabeth. But I just… can’t.”

She drifted over to him and they both looked down into the kitchen. Harold’s broken body lay cooling on the tile floor. Red covered the table, the floor, and the curtains. The man who had killed him had left by the kitchen door, leaving it open, and now dead leaves had blown in on the breeze.

“It’s such a mess.” Harold said. “And you always kept it nice and neat.”

“I know, sweetheart. But that’s over now. You have to come with me.”

“But all your hard work… And I kept it up so nicely, just like you did.” he said, unable to tear his gaze away.

“It was a good way to honor my memory, but now it’s time to leave. Forget the curtains, dear. There are other curtains where we are going. Better curtains.”

“Better curtains?” He asked.

“Better than you could ever imagine.”

Harold glanced at his wife. She was no longer old and in pain, like he remembered her, but looked as fresh and youthful as when they first fell in love. “You’ve changed too.” she said, as if to read his thoughts.

Harold was once again in his twenties, his hair dark, his body lean. He flexed the muscle of his right arm and she took it, pulling him towards the afterlife. He spared another glance at the floor and shook his head. He knew that the neighbor kid was a little ‘off’, but had never expected to be murdered in his kitchen by the lad.
When they entered the next world, Harold had to admit that his dear Elizabeth had been right. This world was even better than the old one. It was the home of their dreams, the place decked out in a way that they could never afford in their old bodies.

She was busy in the kitchen making lunch as he stepped across crisp white tiles that remained unsullied by his footsteps. The soft white curtains blew in the breeze. Harold nodded with mild delight, they were better curtains

It Was Only a Matter of Time

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright 2011 Plot Roach.

It Was Only a Matter of Time

By Plot Roach
　
“Seriously?” he asked her, his head leaning against the frame of the van’s window.

“Seriously.” she said, her face unreadable in the Autumn twilight. She sighed, latched the seatbelt closed over her, adjusted the mirror so that she could see the desolate landscape behind her and started the engine.

“When will I see you again?” he pleaded.

“Never again if I see you first.” she said and drove away without another word.

He watched the van dwindle away into the night. He stood on the road, his feet scuffing the asphalt amid crumbles of broken glass. It would be hard getting over Maria, but not impossible. At last, when the night’s chill wore down his reserve, he plodded back into the house, grabbing a cold bottle of beer from the refrigerator along the way. He threw a microwave dinner on to cook and turned on the television. His old hound, Jeb lifted his weary head from the couch, sniffed the air and barked a asthmatic “wuff” before settling back down onto the flowered and stained cushions.

“She’s gone, Jeb.” He said. The dog merely rolled his eyes in response before returning to slumber. With the woman gone, it only mattered who would now open his cans of dog food since the man-child he called a master seldom remembered on his own.

Still, Maria could be replaced. And would be soon, if left up to the hound. He sighed and farted, filling the room with a noxious stench that only an old hound dog or an intoxicated frat boy can do. Jeb smiled a doggy grin in his sleep and dreamed of soft hands scratching his head, of squirrels too fat to run out of his jaws and of finding an ever flowing river of beef gravy.

The human returned to the microwave, pushed the contents of the plastic dish around and tried a bite. What had not been burned was still partially frozen. And between beef cubes that were brick and broccoli that was rubber, he deemed it beneath his attention. He set it on the ground for the dog and whistled, but the old hound did not move from his post on the ruined couch. The dog knew that the food would still be waiting for him on the floor in the morning, and had no urge to break the last of his teeth on such a meal.

The man walked to the phone and dialed a number he had kept in his wallet. It was this slip of paper that had sent the woman with the soft hands and the loving heart fleeing from this house.

“Hello, Barbara?” the man asked over the phone. “Are you up to anything tonight. Because I thought that we could go out to dinner… Maybe a movie?” he asked.

The old hound smiled even deeper. Soon there would be another pair of soft hands to scratch his head, open the cans of dog food and maybe even find that damn flea that had been plaguing him for more than a week now. Yes, Maria would be replaced. It was only a matter of time.