Domestic ties

Movement caught her eye. There was no reason to scream out, because there was no one to come to the rescue. She contorted her face, clenched her eyelids shut and screamed in a silent whisper.

“We can do this.”

Except there wasn’t a we, just a her. She tipped her head back and let the last mouthful of hot, milky coffee rush down her throat like a shot of whiskey. She took a breath so deep it made her lungs ache. She begged any free-roaming and available endorphins to fill her with confidence. She wouldn’t let this one disappear under the dishwasher like the last one.

She pushed the chair back stood slowly, arching her back in a stretch that made her breasts jut out against her torso like the bow of a ship headed out to sea. She tiptoed across the creaky wood floor of the dining room, turning her body sideways to avoid the chair at the head of the table, the one where her husband used to sit and tell jokes during desert. The jokes weren’t funny, and neither were the black eyes, but that didn’t matter anymore.

Just beyond the doorway that framed a small yellow kitchen, two lines—no wider than a human hair and the same honey brown color as hers—twitched and made invisible circles. Conducted a tiny orchestra of her fear. They were searching, seeking and enjoying the woven cover of early morning darkness. She imagined it touching her, crawling on her, tasting her. But her disgust was silenced by her jealously.

She acted swiftly before it could escape; before her own senseless fear could stop her. Swipe, miss. Swipe, miss. Swipe, crush. The sound wasn’t what she had been expecting. Less goosh, more crackle, as if she had stepped on a tiny metallic jingle bell.

It was motionless, but she smashed it again, and then again. This tiny insect, despite every gram of its horrid foulness, never had to sleep single on a double. It didn’t buy meals for two just so the cashier wouldn’t look at her sadly. It lived among thousands. It could survive the Earth’s demise. It would never know alone.

She gathered the small broken pieces of armor and folded them into a white cloth. She carried it like a tray of precariously arranged crystal glasses through the house and to the door. As she shook open the napkin, a breeze swept by lifting the remains until they rose high enough into the air to turn gold in the sunrise like fragments of fire. It was beautiful and it pulled her from herself. She was overwhelmed with a feeling of security and connectedness, understanding a timeline of life that lasted longer than her own.

Maybe, she thought, I will keep the next one for company.

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