Boxed Bestseller

Boxed Bestseller

You can never really appreciate the way brains splatter against walls until you really see it. Especially if the person who’s brains are on those walls shoots herself at close range through the mouth, at an upward angle, just to make sure that eighty percent of the actual brain tissue is blown out of her skull, so you the unwilling discoverer can appreciate her mind to the full extent. All those memories, emotions, and creative juices she had been now painted all over the white wash. Pink macaroni and cheese, you’ll never eat k-d again. Not now.

Thinking now, of calling the police. Ha, you laugh out loud, not likely. The reaction of the cops would be as such: “Why sir, would an award winning author, and happily married wife shoot herself in the head?” Secretly thinking “You poor old man, she just hated your guts.” Your reply to their spoken thoughts “I just don’t have a damn clue.” Maybe you’d throw in a couple tears and some dramatic sighs. Cause face it; you’re not that sad she’s gone.

Summer of 1977 you met. She was blonde hair and blue eyes perfect; you were partially balding twenty something with developing beer gut. Unfortunately the one nightstand led to bun in the oven. Did the responsible thing and married her, slowly started to fall in love, had children numbers 2 and 3. Seriously in love by now, both aspiring writers, then it changed. She wrote a best seller and you got left at home with the trio of children and the old computer. When the kids all moved out, she was still traveling the world without you and you were still sitting by the old pc, waiting for the epiphany to hit like a ton of bricks.

Thirty years later, she was dead and you were stuck with the responsibility, “still leaving me behind eh sweetheart?” you say out loud. You’re getting angry. You always leave me with everything. Selfish, selfish, selfish. Now who’s going to write another bestseller? It’s not going to be me. Ha-ha! Not likely! Stop thinking and start cleaning, you pull yourself back to reality.

Not only do brains make a mess on the walls, they smell pretty awful when their out of your head, maybe that’s why they’re on the inside, to keep the smell out. The only way you can describe the smell is that time you and the kids went to the old Halloween haunted house fifteen years ago, and all you could smell was sweaty Halloween masks worn by the haunted house employees, mixed with pumpkin. Your conclusion: brains smell like rotted Halloween, so much for enjoying that holiday.

Let’s see, bleach, water, cloths, and garbage bags, this should work; bleach the white walls as best you can, then deal with Miss award-winning author. Slowly but surely you get the job done. The walls look pretty good. You find an old toothbrush to clean the red out of the seams in between the boards. Now to deal with suicidal globetrotting wife, who is now in the stages of rigor mortis, dammit. You run down into the basement to grab one of the huge boxes that used to house the new fridge, now it will hold a best selling author of feminist self-help books. Then it hits you; the bon fire you had last night burning extra leaves…

No one lives close to the house. After she made her millions, the family bought a private island to live. “If we’re chased by a mad man, no one will hear us scream” said the oldest, that’s my boy, way to scare the girls, looking back on it now, he has a point. No one will ever find you. No one.

Everything was clean in the house and you and the wife-fridge-box were making your way to the bonfire pit. With the handy lighter and a tank of gasoline by your side you put boxed-best seller on the pile and doused her good. With a flick of the lighter she was ablaze. You stand back and admire your handy work, and you wait until she’s nothing but ashes (which takes up a good deal of your time, too bad for Hockey Night in Canada). Then you throw the ashes in the lake and sweep up. Head back to the den, double check the white wash, and air out the house to make ol’Halloween funk go away.

You sleep like a log, until about 5am. The scenario playing out in your head Wait a few days, call the cops, tell them she went for a swim and never came back, note to self, burn the bathing suit. You get up and burn her suit, too bad too, leopard bikini made her look like she did back in the good ol’days, before the feminism, before the books, before the nagging, misery, and fighting.

It’s been four months since your wife killed herself, police have found nothing, they say the lake is so huge and deep, they’ll probably never be able to find a body No shit. You think, unless they are able to piece her together like a puzzle. And that thought makes you giggle The Twisted version of humpty dumpty. You’ll never have to worry about her nagging again, or whether or not she’s cheating on you. You feel fantastic, no more nagging phone calls at three in the morning, reminding you to wash the kids clothes and make their lunches. Did she even know how to work our washing machine, she was never here! Too late for her to do the laundry now. You bask in the silence; you’ve never felt so mellow and rested. She just kept nagging and yelling and nagging and yelling and nagging and yelling…

It’s funny how she killed herself without ever having to take hold of the gun.

Fin
J A Stoffer, 2007

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Tags:

crime, horror, murder and mystery