Item: San Francisco, CA, 2004
His wife was not what she seemed. After the incident on the bridge, he was sure of that. Now, the many strange occurrences he had so readily attributed to imagination these past four months came back to him in a rush of memory.
He had suspected nothing, really, until the night of the onion dip. The pictures of their honeymoon had been back from the one-hour lab a week or more at the time, he recalled. She was slicing onions in the kitchen when she cried out and sucked with a pained face on her left index finger.
Rushing to her side, he found her sucking the finger. He offered assistance and tender kisses, reaching for the offending digit so that he might see what was wrong and so affect a cure. But she refused, frowning around her injured finger, and ran to the restroom, slamming the door behind her!
He stared after her a moment before his eyes found the curious drops of green splattered upon the floor where she’d stood, and there on the cutting board just the way blood from a lacerated finger might look. But green!? Insanely, he recalled in a flash an old episode of Star Trek in which it is revealed that Mr. Spock’s blood is green. Even more insanely, he found himself wondering if he had married a Vulcan. Ripping a length of paper towel from the roll, he quickly wiped the thick green drops away; realizing only after he had tossed the crumpled towel into the trash, that he had cleaned the strange green splatters with such haste because he was afraid.
Of what, he was only just beginning to figure out when she emerged from the bathroom, the injured digit swathed in clean white bandage. “I cut my finger,” she said, indicating with a nod the serrated knife on the cutting board. She held the injured finger to her breast and appeared, he thought, peevish.
“Oh,” he said, trying not to look at the small green pearl of a drop he had missed with the paper towel.
“Let me finish that onion,” she said, moving into the kitchen and resuming her position at the cutting board. He moved aside and there had not been an easy moment between them since.
This morning on the bridge had taken them beyond deferred eyes and awkward silences. He shivered to think of that kiss, far too moist, and the loathsome touch of that thing in her mouth, glimpsed writhing a moment between her teeth and in the full light of day!
He had suspected nothing, really, until the night of the onion dip. The pictures of their honeymoon had been back from the one-hour lab a week or more at the time, he recalled. She was slicing onions in the kitchen when she cried out and sucked with a pained face on her left index finger.
Rushing to her side, he found her sucking the finger. He offered assistance and tender kisses, reaching for the offending digit so that he might see what was wrong and so affect a cure. But she refused, frowning around her injured finger, and ran to the restroom, slamming the door behind her!
He stared after her a moment before his eyes found the curious drops of green splattered upon the floor where she’d stood, and there on the cutting board just the way blood from a lacerated finger might look. But green!? Insanely, he recalled in a flash an old episode of Star Trek in which it is revealed that Mr. Spock’s blood is green. Even more insanely, he found himself wondering if he had married a Vulcan. Ripping a length of paper towel from the roll, he quickly wiped the thick green drops away; realizing only after he had tossed the crumpled towel into the trash, that he had cleaned the strange green splatters with such haste because he was afraid.
Of what, he was only just beginning to figure out when she emerged from the bathroom, the injured digit swathed in clean white bandage. “I cut my finger,” she said, indicating with a nod the serrated knife on the cutting board. She held the injured finger to her breast and appeared, he thought, peevish.
“Oh,” he said, trying not to look at the small green pearl of a drop he had missed with the paper towel.
“Let me finish that onion,” she said, moving into the kitchen and resuming her position at the cutting board. He moved aside and there had not been an easy moment between them since.
This morning on the bridge had taken them beyond deferred eyes and awkward silences. He shivered to think of that kiss, far too moist, and the loathsome touch of that thing in her mouth, glimpsed writhing a moment between her teeth and in the full light of day!
Transcribed by Richard Cody, 2005
posted by Richard Cody @ 12:08 AM
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