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