Friday 11 February 2011

Friday Fiction #1


Each weekday morning, my husband gets up for work at 5am. Sometimes I sleep through it. Sometimes I wake and have to get up, rather than lie in bed with my stomach twisting in knots at the thought of the day ahead. If I'm lucky, then I manage to drift back off into warm and welcoming slumber for another hour.

This morning, it seems I might be able to do the latter. At least, it seemed so until he came back into the bedroom, spilling the landing light across my eyes in painful brilliance.

"You haven't seen the car keys, have you?" His voice is somewhat hesitant. He knows the risk of waking me. After nearly 18 years of marriage, he should.

I sigh, but his question immediately makes me assume that 'I' am responsible for the missing keys, the blurred memory rising in my mind that I must have kept them after taking our son to his after-school club yesterday, instead of replacing them in the general storage area.

So I trudge downstairs, blinking in the light. I don't like being up so early, no, not at all! But it's only as I start searching through my coat pockets that I realise there's no reason for me to have the keys. The kids' club had been on Tuesday, and now it's Thursday morning. I didn't use the car yesterday, didn't even take the keys for the sake of the door key that's on the same ring.

I can feel the frown growing on my face, the tightness across my forehead and around my eyes. I have a bad feeling, very much in the Han Solo type of way. "Did you leave them in the door?"

He opens it. No keys. "I remember locking the car." he says in defence, then adds. "I'm sure I do."

I don't even need to say it. I just look at him. After a moment, he goes out and reaches for the car door. It opens. He leans in and then comes back. There are keys dangling from his hand.

I look at him again, over the rim of my glasses. My eyesight is so appalling that I can't actually see him if I do that, and right now, not being seen by me is probably the best idea.

"Um, sorry."

I'm speechless. I actually cannot think of anything to say. Why is he still alive after all this? I guess I'm too tired to kill him right now. But there's always later ...


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3 comments:

  1. I'm not a morning person by nature. Forced into it by the day job. I would love to sleep the day away and get up as the sun goes down. I should've been a vampire, but I like garlic too much.

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