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Being Useful
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
John reaches out his hand from beneath the
covers towards the bedside cabinet. He
taps the belly of his wife’s toppled Valium bottle until the alarm that seeps
through the ceiling from the above apartment is silent. With a smack of his lips, he rises to greet
the day. As the room swims to meet his
greeting, he stretches, taking back control of his body from his dreams.
Standing, he stares up at the ceiling and
whispers to himself “Maybe today.”
As he waits, his history returns to
him. “Patience is a virtue, John.” he
whispers, “That’s what you always used to say to me, Jessie.”
John lowers his head to the small chalk
circles on the wooden floor; the same marks he has followed every morning since
the big fight with Jessie. Each one a
footstep leading through the bedroom door to the broom closet then past the
couch and into the kitchen; each one part of a journey that he has yet to
complete. He waits for the thuds of just
woken feet from the apartment above and marches with them towards the broom
closet.
All of the apartments in the block have the
same design, apart from those whose owners believe they know better than the
architects who designed them. The owner
of the apartment above John’s is one of these individuals, he always believes
he knows best. In his apartment, the
broom closet has been converted into a rest and shower room with only a tiny
corner remaining for the cold weather coats and shoes to call home, while they
that wait to be useful again. The
defunct restroom on the other side of the apartment was then devoured by the
kitchen, which mutated into a much more lavish kitchen-diner.
John listens to the unmistakable splashes
of urination emanating from above him and joins in. As he stands in the broom closet, his dark
brown piss bouncing off the washing machine and the disarray of boots onto the
walls and coats. John drifts away with the joy of this release of pressure and
he can see his wife’s face with its soft skin and ready smile. He reaches out to pull her closer, to feel
her waist in his arms but it is not there.
It’s just his imagination.
As the footsteps above him begin their
daily journey to the kitchen for breakfast, he follows their lead, taking care
to stay within the chalk circle path.
Looking out through the kitchen window, he notices that the sky is
overcast this morning. Each day that he
has walked this route, it has been bright and sunny but today, at last, it is
overcast.
Staring at the sky, he smiles to himself,
“Yeah, maybe today.” he whispers.
The rattles and clanks of breakfast time
make their way through the ceiling. John
takes the last clean bowl from the cupboard and, filling it with baked beans -
the only edible thing left in the apartment - he follows the sound of the
footsteps above to the couch.
He picks up the remote and flicks through
the channels until the chalk outline where his TV used to be is replaced with
smiling “Good Morning” faces. He eats
his beans and chuckles to himself over the mumbled demi-jokes that filter
through the ceiling.
“Jessie loved to sit and watch TV in the
morning.” he says to himself. “I was
always too uptight to eat when I had just woken up. Jessie used to kid around, she called me her
‘little caveman’. That just used to make
me worse. Jessie………… Jessie, why did you
have to do it to me, Jessie?”
Licking the last of the red sauce from the
bowl, he follows the sound of the footsteps back to the kitchen. He tosses the bowl onto the four-day-old pile
of dirty dishes in the sink and stoops for a moment to stare at the first signs
of life as mould begins to break through the skin of a discarded chicken leg on
the worktop.
The footsteps move from the kitchen back to
the bedroom and John obeys their call.
He slides the wardrobe door open in time with the guy above him and
takes out his suit.
Running his fingers along the fabric, he
recalls “I haven’t worn this since that
trip to Maui. You always liked this
suit, I never understood why. Back then,
I never understood anything, did I, Jessie?
I never understood how to make you happy, how to keep you here.”
He pulls the silk shirt around his chest
and does up the buttons. “I thought I
knew it all but all I knew was how to drive you into another man’s arm,” he
turns to the bedroom window as he fastens his pants, “Today. Today is the day, Jessie. Too cold and wet out there for it not to be.”
Slipping on his shoes, John follows the
footsteps, one after the other to the hallway making their way to the world
outside. He stops short by the broom
closet door. “Come on. Do it!”
Obediently, the footsteps above him
stop. John smiles as he turns and opens
the closet door, willing the guy above him to finish this once and for all.
His smile widens as he hears the creak of
the closet door open above him.
Suddenly, a heavy dark thunderclap shakes the ceiling, as if the guy
above has just dropped his sanity, then both apartments are filled with the
sound of his screams.
John’s smile blossoms into a magnificent
grin. He walks into the closet and lifts
his wife’s severed head from the coat hook.
“You’d think he’d be happy to have you with him.” he says raising his
gaze to the ceiling.
He strokes her brow and stares into her
eyes then, with a shrug of his shoulders, says, “It sounds like you were right
after all, Jessie. He didn’t just want
you for your body.”
David Biggs
Email: David Biggs
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