After starting work at six in the morning, I came home after a sixteen hours shift. My arms felt like I’m holding crates, while my legs felt as if I was walking in thick swap mud. There’s a chest pain that feels like something poking from the inside, but after having that pain for God knows how long, I managed to ignore it. I’d ease my hands into my pockets pulling out my keys, holding them, and unlocking my front door. As I walked into the house, my stomach growls like an angry problem child, while my eyelid are so heavy, my eyes look slanted. I didn’t even know why I put the keys back in my pocket after I got out of the car, but oh well. As I shut the door, I plopped on the couch, dumped my keys and wallet on the closet table, almost in one motion. Before I knew it, my head was in my hands and fell asleep almost like someone hit an off switch and I’m shutting down.
Suddenly, I felt someone shaking me back and forth. “Daniel! What are u doing, sleeping?”
I opened my eyes, found myself laying on the couch, and staring at my wife looking down at me. “Hi Jessica, how are you doing.”
“I’m fine, how was work?”
“Tiring as usual. All twelve hours of it.”
“What do you mean twelve hours. It’s after ten o’clock. You left at five-thirty in the morning. That not twelve hours, that sixteen. Can’t you count?”
“Baby I lose count have twenty minutes. If I sit there counting all those hours, it’ll feel like forty hours.”
“Well now that your rested, are you ready?”
“For what?”
“To take me out to dinner.”
“Did I promise that?”
“No, but I haven’t gone out sense you started working sixteen hours the past month or two. And I figured since I’m bored, you’ll take me out.”
“It’s ten o’clock. I got to get up at four in the morning. You going to have to wait for another time.”
“God! I been waiting for over a month almost two months to go out-”
“-don’t you got friends to go out with?”
“I don’t what to go out with friends, that why I have a husband, stupid. You know what-”
“-Baby, please. Can’t we just eat dinner so I can go to bed? What is for dinner?”
“What kind of woman do you think I am? What, I’m supposed to be barefoot and pregnant, cooking dinners for my master while you out there working and making all the money, having fun and doing what ever you want?”
“I’m not having fun. I’m trying to make up for the money we lose when you lost your job a month ago, almost two month ago. Now please, I going to be up long enough to eat and talk to you, then im going to bed.”
“Well, just so you know, I didn’t cook dinner. That’s right. I didn’t cook dinner. Because you need to learn to make time for you wife and stop making excuses for not satisfying your wife. As long as I been married to you-”
A wine bottle glass hit Jessica in the face like it was a bull’s eye. As the bottle broke, her nose looked as crooked as a witch, while blood poured from her nose horses coming out the gate on race day. In a panic, Jessica stepped backwards, tripping over the table, and hitting her head on the floor, while my eyes grew like wildfire. I closed my eyes and shake my head like it would shook the image from my head. When I opened my eyes, I found my wife sitting in front of me, face still intact, and giving me the “evil wife crossed eyed” look.
“Daniel, what is your problem? Why are you shaking your head and tripping and stuff?”
“Nothing, look can you just go make me something? Burger, fries, pizza, spaghetti, anything?”
“You don’t like spaghetti.”
“I don’t care, I’m hungry.”
“So if you hungry, go cook. I’m a maid. I spend three hours, all day, cleaning this house. I should have to get up and cook for you just because your hungry. If you hungry go cook get your own food. Im not a slave to any man. God, just because you work a sixteen hours shift doesn’t mean you can be lazy. Stop being so lazy and do something productive for a change.”
An axe flew from the behind me, stabbed Jessica in the face, like it was mad of wood, and slitting it open, making it looked like sliced watermelon. The force from the flying axe forced Jessica to fall backwards, crashing on a glass table, like she was falling from a three story building. I blinked like there was something in my eye and shook my head while looking to the ground for answers. When I stopped blinking and shaking my head, Jessica stared at me, axeless, like I said a dumb joke. “You have a problem, stupid.”
“I’m tired, I just want to eat something.”
“Get your own food, I’m not cooking, I’m tired. I been cleaning this house for three hours, all day. I don’t feel like cooking.”
“Fine, whatever. I’ll just walk down the street and get a burger.”
“OK, I don’t mind a romantic walk.”
“I don’t want a romantic walk. I’m just going down, alone, eating something and going to sleep.”
“Well, we can make it romantic. All I got to do-”
“-I don’t want to be romantic. I just want to be alone. I just want to eat something and go to sleep.”
“Why are you so boring?”
“Whatever.” I took my wallet from the table, pocketed and headed for the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Why don’t you argue? What is your problem? You’re a man, if you don’t want to get me something, then keep fighting until I understand that you don’t want to get me anything. You know, if you mad or something, you need to learn to act out your feelings. And-” Suddenly her head exploded like it was a honey dew melon with an lite M80 in it, while blood came from her neck like Ol’ Faithful. I closed my eyes hoping and praying it all was a dream. When I opened my eyes, my wife’s head was still intact and still complaining.
“Bye baby, I be back.” I grabbed my jacket and walked out the door.
“Fine. Leave. I don’t care. Leave, selfish bastard. See if you come back. Hear me! ….”
About an hour later, the walk in the forty degree cold caused me to shiver like a small earthquake. I stand in front of the door and reach in my pocket for my keys. All I find is my wallet and a receipt for dinner. I sighed, as I checked my pockets in my jacket. Nothing. Knocking on the door, I looked around to see what lights in the house are on. No answer.
I banged on the door like I was the police. “Baby, open up, it’s cold out here.” No response. As my hands get numb from the cold and from banging on the door like I’m going to break it down, I looked around, trying to hear any sounds in the house. Giving up on banging on the door, I banged on all the windows, while screaming like I was trying to wake the whole neighborhood. Still nothing. So assuming she left, I sat on the porch, rested my head on the door and waited like a good, trained dog, until she returned. Once in a while, I banged on the door, just in case I happen to wake her up. Didn’t work. I started to go to my cousin’s house. She only lived ten minutes from my house, but its too far to walk and my car keys are on the same ring as my house key. There’s a pay phone in walking distance, but I gave my change to the waiter as a tip, and my cousin’s phone, nor my phone, accepts collect calls. Where ever Jessica when, she couldn’t have gone too far or too long. I thought about sleeping in the car, but I conveniently locked it. As the door felt more like a pillow, and the cold, concrete porch felt like a comfortable chair, I felt asleep.
Hours later, the sun burned my eyes as the door opened. My head fell backwards waking officially waking me up. I looked up and saw Jessica staring down at me, like she won a battle, as she dropped on my chest. “I hope this though you a lesson. You shouldn’t have been so boring to your wife. So there. Hope you had a good sleep.”
I picked up my keys, put them in my pocketed and sighed. “What time is it?”
“Almost 11:30am.”
“Ah man, im going to be late, all because you locked me out.”
“You not going to be late. You boss called and said if you don’t get in by nine-thirty don’t bother coming in because you’ll be fired.”
“What time did he call?”
“Eight-thirty.”
“Why didn’t you get me?”
“I was tired. Hey, if you got the right to be lazy when you work sixteen hours shift, then I have the right to be lazy when I clean the house all day for three hours.”
A giant lite match felt from the ceiling and landed on Jessica. Like she was dry sticks and plants, the flame from the match spread engulfs her entire body. She tried to stop, drop and roll, but gasoline poured from the ceiling causing to flames to reach the ceiling. Seconds later, Jessica exploded like an atomic bomb. As the impact of the explosion reached me, I closed my eyes and turned my head. When I turned my head around, I opened my eyes and found my wife unburned and unexploded. Damn!
I scratched my head and sighed several times. “You know baby. I’m going to my cousin’s house. I’m going to try to get my job back, but if not, I’ll just regroup for few days, and go look for a job. And I hope to at least get an interview in a few days.”
“So when are you coming back?”
“As soon as I feel that it’s a good idea.”
“What do you mean, “as soon as you feel it a good idea.” Im your wife, you should always feel it’s a good idea to see me.”
“Baby, you just going to have to trust me right now. It not a good idea to see you right now. I call you through out the week.” I turned and headed for my car.
“But how are we going to pay the bills if you aren’t working? ….”
“.” I just kept walking. Judging by the way the past twenty-four hours had gone, If I turned around, she might have gotten eatten alive by wolves and lions.
Authors bio is coming up shortly.
