Breakfast is Served…

The table on the patio was set, and violets, her favorite, were freshly cut and placed in a vase as blueberry pancakes lay wrapped under a linen towel and the compote kept warm nestled over a tea-light votive. He checked his watch, nervousness overtaking every fiber of his being, as he toyed with the diamond engagment ring that was the constant reminder to the painstakingly difficult plans he had so desperately worked on. He saw her through the sliding glass door as she walked into her kitchen, the kimono hugging every inch of her body, and he felt a lump grow in his throat as she turned and saw him. As she walked outside, he came over to her and knelt down on one knee, the ring extended out in front of him. But before he ever had a chance to speak, she hit him with the cast iron skillet in her hand, and as unconsciousness threatened to overtake him, he heard her say, “I warned you what would happen if you kept stalking me!”

FSF

Filed under: Flash Fiction Tagged: FSF

Go Back To Sleep…

I awoke at precisely 3.02 a.m., my internal alarm screaming at me – something was wrong.  I reached for my phone on the nightstand and pressed the home button, the light blinding me and causing me to squint as I checked the time. Rubbing my eyes, I listened, wondering what it was that could have woken me.

Over the whirring and knocking of the off-balanced ceiling fan that I had been meaning to fix for three years, I could barely hear the crying coming from the bathroom. I slide my hand to my wife’s side of the bed, and felt sheets where her body should have been, not that I needed to confirm it was her in our bathroom, but kind of hoping I was just hearing things, too. Sitting up on my elbow, I called out to her, “Maggie, are you ok?”

The crying stopped and I could tell she was doing her best not to concern me as she softly said from behind the closed-door, “I’m fine, honey. Go back to sleep.”

‘I’m fine.’ The two words in every woman’s vocabulary that ignites a primal fear in every man’s heart. Taking a deep breath, I propped myself up and swung my legs out over the edge of the bed. I wasn’t going to be going back to sleep, and I knew that if I did, sometime in the next fifteen years, this moment would be used against me in a court of matrimonial argument. So, I resigned myself to my course of action and made for the bathroom door.

I had to tread carefully, because the literal minefield of our bedroom floor could be littered with any number of children’s toys, balled up clothes, or left out shoes, each one spelling doom for me if I stepped wrong. However, the loud hissing shriek of the cat as I stepped on his tail was not something I was expecting, and as I jumped up off of him, I fell backwards into the wall I was using to support my half-asleep self, knocking over the lamp on the dresser and sending it crashing to the floor.

Without missing a beat, my wife called out from the bathroom, “Are you ok?”

Now, mind you, I’m a smart-alex to begin with, but as I sat there, on the floor with my pride firmly shattered next to the lamp, and the cat nuzzling up to me, I just calmly said back to her, “I’m fine honey. Go back to sleep.”

MMWM #11

Filed under: Flash Fiction Tagged: MMWM