the floor and kicks it against the wall.
He is cleaning his teeth. He draws the fine silk floss between his teeth. It shreds off. A fuzzy bit remains in the gap. He tries to press another piece down to get that bit out. He cannot force the white thread down. It snaps in his fingers.
He screams. He screams at the man in the mirror and draws back his hand, throws the floss away violently. It hits the wall. It hangs there and waves in the rush of angry breeze from the man.
He has torn another piece of floss from the container. He is giving the dental floss another chance. He is holding back his fury. If the floss knows what is good for it, it will plunge down between the teeth and draw out the shredded bit immediately.
It does. The man is mollified. The systematic juices leave off bubbling, the fires sink, the coals are scattered.
But the anger is still there, apart. Energy is never lost; a primal law.
He is eating.
His wife places a steak before him. He picks up the knife and fork and slices. The meat is tough, the blade is dull.
A spot of red puffs up in the flesh of his cheeks. His eyes narrow. He draws the knife through the meat. The blade will not sever the browned flesh.
His eyes widen. Withheld tempest tightens and shakes him. He saws at the meat as though to give it one last opportunity to yield.
The meat will not yield.
He howls.
“God damn it!”
White teeth jam together. The knife is hurled across the room.
The woman appears, alarm etching transient scars on her forehead. Her husband is beyond himself. Her husband is shooting poison through his arteries. Her husband is releasing another cloud of animal temper. It is mist that clings. It hangs over the furniture, drips from the walls.
It is alive.
So through the days and nights. His anger falling like frenzied axe blows in his house, on everything he owns. Sprays of teeth-grinding hysteria clouding his windows and falling to his floors. Oceans of wild, uncontrolled hate flooding through every room of his house; filling each iota of space with a shifting, throbbing life.
He lay on his back and stared at the sun-mottled ceiling.
The last day, he told himself. The phrase had been creeping in and out of his brain since he’d awakened.
In the bathroom he could hear the water running. He could hear the medicine cabinet being opened and then closed again. He could hear the sound of her slippers shuffling on the tile floor.
Sally, he thought, don’t leave me.
“I’ll take it easy if you stay,” he promised the air in a whisper.
But he knew he couldn’t take it easy. That was too hard. It was easier to fly off the handle, easier to scream and rant and attack.
He turned on his side and stared out into the hall at the bathroom door. He could see the line of light under the door. Sally is in there, he thought. Sally, my wife, whom I married many years ago when I was young and full of hope.
He closed his eyes suddenly and clenched his fists. It came on him again. The sickness that prevailed with more violence every time he contracted it. The sickness of despair, of lost ambition. It ruined everything. It cast a vapor of bitterness over all his comings and goings. It jaded appetite, ruined sleep, destroyed affection.
“Perhaps if we’d had children,” he muttered and knew before he said it that it wasn’t the answer.
Children. How happy they would be watching their wretched father sinking deeper into his pit of introspective fever each day.
All right, tortured his mind, let’s have the facts. He gritted his teeth and tried to make his mind a blank. But, like a dull-eyed idiot, his mind repeated the words that he muttered often in his sleep through restless, tossing nights.
I’m forty years old. I teach English at Fort College. Once I had hoped to be a writer. I thought this would be a fine place to write. I would teach class part of the day and write with the rest of my time. I met Sally at school and married her. I thought everything
He is cleaning his teeth. He draws the fine silk floss between his teeth. It shreds off. A fuzzy bit remains in the gap. He tries to press another piece down to get that bit out. He cannot force the white thread down. It snaps in his fingers.
He screams. He screams at the man in the mirror and draws back his hand, throws the floss away violently. It hits the wall. It hangs there and waves in the rush of angry breeze from the man.
He has torn another piece of floss from the container. He is giving the dental floss another chance. He is holding back his fury. If the floss knows what is good for it, it will plunge down between the teeth and draw out the shredded bit immediately.
It does. The man is mollified. The systematic juices leave off bubbling, the fires sink, the coals are scattered.
But the anger is still there, apart. Energy is never lost; a primal law.
He is eating.
His wife places a steak before him. He picks up the knife and fork and slices. The meat is tough, the blade is dull.
A spot of red puffs up in the flesh of his cheeks. His eyes narrow. He draws the knife through the meat. The blade will not sever the browned flesh.
His eyes widen. Withheld tempest tightens and shakes him. He saws at the meat as though to give it one last opportunity to yield.
The meat will not yield.
He howls.
“God damn it!”
White teeth jam together. The knife is hurled across the room.
The woman appears, alarm etching transient scars on her forehead. Her husband is beyond himself. Her husband is shooting poison through his arteries. Her husband is releasing another cloud of animal temper. It is mist that clings. It hangs over the furniture, drips from the walls.
It is alive.
So through the days and nights. His anger falling like frenzied axe blows in his house, on everything he owns. Sprays of teeth-grinding hysteria clouding his windows and falling to his floors. Oceans of wild, uncontrolled hate flooding through every room of his house; filling each iota of space with a shifting, throbbing life.
He lay on his back and stared at the sun-mottled ceiling.
The last day, he told himself. The phrase had been creeping in and out of his brain since he’d awakened.
In the bathroom he could hear the water running. He could hear the medicine cabinet being opened and then closed again. He could hear the sound of her slippers shuffling on the tile floor.
Sally, he thought, don’t leave me.
“I’ll take it easy if you stay,” he promised the air in a whisper.
But he knew he couldn’t take it easy. That was too hard. It was easier to fly off the handle, easier to scream and rant and attack.
He turned on his side and stared out into the hall at the bathroom door. He could see the line of light under the door. Sally is in there, he thought. Sally, my wife, whom I married many years ago when I was young and full of hope.
He closed his eyes suddenly and clenched his fists. It came on him again. The sickness that prevailed with more violence every time he contracted it. The sickness of despair, of lost ambition. It ruined everything. It cast a vapor of bitterness over all his comings and goings. It jaded appetite, ruined sleep, destroyed affection.
“Perhaps if we’d had children,” he muttered and knew before he said it that it wasn’t the answer.
Children. How happy they would be watching their wretched father sinking deeper into his pit of introspective fever each day.
All right, tortured his mind, let’s have the facts. He gritted his teeth and tried to make his mind a blank. But, like a dull-eyed idiot, his mind repeated the words that he muttered often in his sleep through restless, tossing nights.
I’m forty years old. I teach English at Fort College. Once I had hoped to be a writer. I thought this would be a fine place to write. I would teach class part of the day and write with the rest of my time. I met Sally at school and married her. I thought everything
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