Category Short Story

Smoke & Mirrors

freyathewriter 2 Comments

fear-8

I had this system for getting exactly what I wanted out of people. Oh, I’m not proud of it as such, but I admit, it was very, very effective.

You see, I’m an articulate woman. Well-educated, well-informed, well-adjusted. At least, that’s what people see, what I allow people to see. If they get too close to finding out what lies beneath that carefully crafted veneer – because it is, after all, paper-thin – then, I turn it on. The system. Works every, damn time.

Jonathan. He was the last one. he was skating on thin ice – that’s all I can say. All I will say, to the likes of you at least. He got too close. I’ve standards to keep up, an image to protect, my whole bloody life to keep on track. You know, a mortgage, a car, an exotic holiday I bloody well deserve. Do you know how difficult it is to keep this up, day in, day out?

The last straw was the lemon sherbert that melted all over the counter. Jonathan swore, jumped up as if he’d had a bucket of water thrown all over him and grabbed me, to make me look at the sweet, sticky mess dripping all over his new briefcase..

“Damn it all, Sophie! Do you know how much that cost? Look, look at the label. Just tell me you don’t know how expensive those things are. Bloody limited edition as well!”

He shoved a receipt in my face. “Read. It.” Menacing wasn’t the word. The paper was rich, creamy, watermarked. It literally smelled of money, that I could tell. But decipher the hieroglyphics handwritten in elegant copperplate? No. Not my bag.

I’d rather die than admit I can’t read, and watch my world crumble at my feet.

So, I cried. Like a baby. Got him to feel sorry for me, hold me close, comfort me, apologise..

And then I killed him.

I’d rather he die, than let the world know my guilty little secret.

Fly in the Ointment

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Fly Agaric – Richard Crofts – Wikimedia Commons (click here)

Making breakfast hadn’t always been Valerie’s responsibility. When they had first married, Evan had insisted on waking her with a kiss, a purple tulip and a boiled egg, made just the way she liked it.

Valerie reminisced as she prodded the mushrooms sweating away in a desultory fashion in the frying pan. Those really had been the good times, sadly long gone, she though, even though today was only their first anniversary. What had happened to them, to Evan’s eagerness to delight her in every way possible?

She sighed so heavily that her breath rippled the surface of the tea steaming in the bone china cup waiting on the counter. Not her tea, of course. She couldn’t stand the stuff. Coffee was her poison, quite literally, in Evan’s oft-voiced opinion. He claimed that the almost black roast that she brewed several times daily was going to give her a heart attack.

Back then, she had laughed, taking all his criticisms lightly and in her stride. Bu now, now she had had her fill – more than – of his relentless digs. She had come to realise that his breakfast ritual had been his way of controlling her. Decaf bloody coffee, for God’s sake! Did he think she hadn’t noticed? And as for the egg – well it was just the way she liked it because that’s what he had made her believe over time. God, she craved a bacon sandwich, the bread fried until it was crispy and and oozing with grease. Not whilst Evan was in charge.

The mushrooms were done, at last. So much for coffee giving her a heart attack. She rather thought that the woodland fungi glistening on the plate might just do the trick.

Evan did so adore wild, organic food. And those red mushrooms were so pretty.

He’d love them.

Wouldn’t he?

Dark harvest

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I put tulips under all the pillows, and then I set fire to the house.

You see, they hadn’t believed me when I said I would wreak my revenge. Dr Fernandez just told me I was attention-seeking and waved his hand at me in that Spanish way of his, dismissing me from his rooms like a naughty child. In fact, that’s exactly what he said I was ‘”A reediculous niña”‘ as he pushed me out into the reception area so hard that I tripped over that damned stupid rug and ended up sprawled on the floor, nose pressed against his receptionist’s Malono Blahnik’s. She is paid far too much.

Anyway, on the following Friday, we packed our bags and planned our escape. When I say ‘we’, I mean me and Vincent, my loyal English Bull Terrier and only friend. And when I say ‘planned’, well, that’s a rather grand description for chucking my holdall in the boot and gunning the poor old Morris Minor’s engine to within an inch of its life. Vincent doesn’t like the car, pretty much because there’s a hole in the passenger seat’s footwell, so if you stare at it too long, the rushing tarmac makes you feel sick. Or, makes you sick, in Vincent’s case. He’s since learned to hunker down on the back seat and close his eyes, pretty much.

You see, I’d never have done that thing with the tulips if it wasn’t for Fred. I’ll never forget the time that he went to the garden centre and never came back. Seventeen, I was. He was Mum’s new bloke, really nice and all, not like some of the other men she’d hooked up with since Dad high-tailed it to Spain – trouble with the Vice Squad, so Mum told me. ‘”Just off to Greengage’s!”‘ Fred had sung out as he stepped out the front door, and I knew he’d come back with those beautiful purple tulips that he knew I loved. I’d almost hugged myself with the pleasure of it all. It was like having a new dad all over again.

Only, he didn’t come back. It was like he’d been wiped off the face of the earth.

But Mum didn’t seem all that surprised, or even bothered.

And then, quick as you like, Nigel moved in. Barely out of his teens and a cocky so-and-so. Fancied himself. And unfortunately, me as well.

No damned way.

Shame about the house though.