Man in Wood

Man in Wood
chapter - Eva and Ade

Wednesday 14 March 2012

that stands outside


She gradually steps out of the bed pulling the sheet around her nakedness as she does so. The few minutes that she had laid there on her back while her husband routinely went about his business was mercifully done. He dresses for work, his colourful yellow tie with the characteristically dull office suit adding an extra touch of unattractiveness she had previously been unaware of. He splashes some common cologne on his cheeks looking quite smug at his reflection through the mirror on the dressing table, the new Ikea dresser which just as her husband she had grown to dislike. I mean neither was unkind to her.
‘How do I look? He proclaims with astonishing assurance.
The same as you always look, utterly boring and lifeless.
She bites on her lower lip before answering.
‘Great’.
‘I’d best be going. I’ll be late and I’m not project manager just yet and even if I were it would be of principal importance that I for one should …
His words float pointlessly around the room feeding those walls that may have ears.
He walks over to her and kisses her softly.
He says something funny that makes her force a smile eager to give momentum to his exist. He kisses on the forehead and calls her a silly nickname, one I fail to remember but certainly nauseating.
At the bedroom door he says goodbye once again calling her by that silly nickname. She throws him a half-smiles. He hesitates at the door before finally leaving. She faces the door until she hears him take the stairs, close the front door, cross the cobbled driveway, start the engine of the company car and hit the gas peddle.
She throws herself back on the bed eyes closed at first before looking up at the forever-white ceiling, it is the forever-ness of it all that brings on the sudden bout of depression.
Her left hand caresses the cool of the bedroom wall above the bed head.

Under the shower she thinks about the hands of her lover as she washed away the remains of her husband’s frequently abhorrent scent. What was it about his hands that she loved so much? She checks for lumps though usually afraid. The power shower drowns out the sounds of activity in the house to enhance her escape into fantasy. She knows nothing about that that stands outside.
She bends to pick up the green bottle of hair conditioner and thinks about those hands.

No comments:

Post a Comment