Together Forever
and Ever
Photo Credit: Haanala 76
“What do you mean you don’t see her? She’s right there.” The man is upset, and the woman is as calm as a capybara. “Right fucking there!” The man is pointing at the chair beside him. It is, however, empty.
“There is no need to raise your voice,” his wife says.
“There is no need to raise your voice,” the woman says.
The woman produces a cell phone from the long wooden desk that looks out of place in the sterile office and snaps a photo, blinding the man with the flash.
“Mr. Prince, I want you to look at this photo and tell me what you see.” The woman turns the phone for him to see. The distance between them makes the man lean forward and squint.
The man’s head snaps back and forth from the phone to the chair, either unable or unwilling to accept the truth that the photo provides. When he opens his mouth to speak, another voice cuts him off.
“Ray, we’ve been through this. It doesn’t matter what that photo, or this woman says, I’m here and no matter what you do, you’ll never get rid of me,” his wife says.
“Mr. Prince, you see that your wife isn’t here, right? Do you remember what happened?” The woman makes the phone disappear with the practiced dexterity of a magician performing his favorite trick.
“But she’s… yeah. I remember.” The man says, dropping his head. He’s been here before. In this room. In this conversation, feeling the sharp embrace of defeat.
“Tell her what you did,” says his wife.
“Tell me what happened, if you can.” The woman says, preparing her pad for notes.
The man looks at the empty chair, occupied by his dead wife. Her beautiful blonde hair isn’t beautiful. It’s matted and crusted with dirt. Her long legs, the ones he’d fallen in love with, are now emaciated and covered in massive purple bruises. The face looking back at him doesn’t smile. She can’t smile; smiling requires lips.
“Go ahead. Tell us what you did. I want to hear it again.” She says with a mouth that doesn’t move, staring at him with eyes that don’t blink.
“I… uh, I got drunk and I,”
“Speak up, Ray. We can’t hear you.” His wife holds a cupped hand to the hole where her ear used to be.
“I got drunk, and I killed my wife.” The man cries out in a loud howl. After a few heavy heaves, he continues. “I came home after drinking at Trisha’s.”
“Call it what it is. It’s a strip club,” spits his dead wife.
“I was drinking at the strip club, and I came home. We got into a fight and I.”
“Why’d we get into a fucking fight, Ray?”
“We got into a fight because the power was off and I was drinking up our money. And you wouldn’t stop yelling.”
“Mr. Prince,” says the woman with an eyebrow twitch that makes her seem like a perpetually disappointed English nanny.
“Sorry. She wouldn’t stop yelling at me. She called me all kinds of names.”
“Momma’s boy. Pussy. Piece of shit,” his wife says with a chuckle.
“Stop! I…I told her to stop, but she kept going and going. I just had to make her stop.”
“That’s not fucking true, is it, Ray?”
“Is that the entire story, Ray?” the woman asks, lifting her pen and putting her elbows on the desk. The nanny look is gone, replaced with her best impression of the bad cop in an interrogation.
“No. She was yelling and calling me names, but that’s not why I killed her.”
“Oh, Ray, this is the best part.” His wife says.
“Why did you kill your wife, Ray?”
“She wanted a divorce. She was tired of my shit, and she was going to leave me.” The man hides his face and cries. “I couldn’t let her go, and I…I killed her.”
“And you got what you fucking wished for.” His wife says with a chuckle. “You’re stuck with me, Ray. We’ll be together forever.”
“Thank you, Ray. I think it’s important that we go over the events of that day often and keep them in order. It’s easy sometimes for these things to get mixed up.”
The woman presses a button, and two men in white coats come into the room. After unshackling him from his chair, the two men take the man and his wife back to the room they share.
Thanks TopInFiction.com for featuring this story in the TIF Week 30 of 2025 newsletter!
Very well done.
This is a well constructed scene, Orin. Very effective and dark. I like it. Bravo!