“Harry Dimpler, I know you’re smoking down there. How many times do I have to tell you about smoking in the h…”

Jesus H. Christ! There she goes again. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. She never shuts up anymore. She’s become the classic image of a harpy. And that voice; a voice like a shrike that, I swear, could etch glass. I’m all the way down in the basement and that voice sounds like it’s right at my shoulder. It cuts through any and all barriers.

Funny how I never noticed the unpleasant quality of that voice when we were dating. She seemed the proverbial angel. So we married. Life was bliss for the first few months. Then it started. Little things at first. “Why don’t we ever go out anymore?” “Other couples can afford nicer cars than we drive.” “Why don’t we spend more time together?”

Before long it was constant, incessant. She nagged about every stinking little thing: I left my shaver out on the sink…I didn’t take the trash out…My muddy boots were left on the foyer floor…I’m always scratching my ass, Marian’s husband never does that…Blah, blah, blah. Which, as I think about it, begs the question; How does she know what the fuck Marians husband does or doesn’t do, anyway?

We almost called it quits a few times but instead I just moved her out. Didn’t want to go through the bullshit of a long messy divorce, just end it. I thought each time that I was rid of her but she always came weedling her way back somehow. Each time I’d move her further away but she always seemed to find some way to insinuate herself back into my world.

Now, here she is again, bitching about my smoking in the house. Christ! I haven’t smoked in two years, but always there she is to hold up accusations. If I bothered to deny it she’d just accuse me of hiding the smokes and lying about it.

That’s it. There’s nothing for it but to move her out again.

I thought burying her under the garden in the far end of the back yard would be sufficient. That was two years ago, but now she’s starting again. This time it’s the dump. That’s eight miles away…

As the harpy flies.