The Kitchen

Murder is such an innocuous word. Dry in the mouth, it tastes of old paper and dust motes. It does have a type of pleasing alliteration on the tongue, a brief taste of what glory could be. The passion of the act is somehow lost in the brevity of the word. The coppery tang of blood, the pulse of emotion beginning in the most primeval part of the brain, the crescendo of the final act; all is lost. What is left is the briefest of words, two tiny syllables rolling in a sing-song fashion through pursed lips. The sheer grandiosity of the act demands a better word.

I fumbled for my keys at the back door, my hands slick with blood. I didn't realize how quickly blood turned thick and sludgy. I noticed dark maroon crescents underneath my fingernails as the key finally slid home in the lock. The cuffs of my shirt were stiffening. The blood looked black against pale blue.

I entered the sanity of my tidy kitchen. The comforting odors of bleach mingled with peaches drifted about my head as I closed my eyes and leaned against the gleaming counter. I could hear the ticking of my many clocks, patiently soothing seconds into minutes, minutes into hours. My heart slowed to keep perfect beat with them, my keepers of time.

I turned slowly and opened my eyes to survey my spotless world. The glow of well polished honey toned wood of the floor blended seamlessly into creamy walls punctuated with tasteful accents. My eyes drifted to the table centered in the kitchen. Bob and I had found it at an estate auction last year. I could see him in the garage, carefully applying stripper to its painted top. Patiently sanding away at the ravages of old paint and time, revealing gorgeous wood grain. I saw him in the cheap motel room, his eyes as my hand flashed up and down, the blade gleaming.

There was something on my table. My subconcious muttered numbly as Bob's crooked smile danced in my thoughts. Something dark and wet. Something pulsing out a slow beat. Something somehow noxious and wicked. Something which sat in a growing pool of syrupy foul liquid. Liquid which was spreading across the surface of my precious table, headed inexorably toward the edge, something which was going to drip and land with a disgusting splotching noise on my sparkling floor.

My mind began clamoring at me, move just move you stupid cow. With every pulse the reddish brown fluid seemed to pump from the oddly shaped, wet lump whcih defiled the center of my table, the center of the room, the center of my world. I gazed frantically around, my eyes landing on a neat stack of creamy towels edged in laced piled carefully at the end of the counter. My hand hesitated as I reached for them, their trimly folded outlines rebuking what I had intended. Instead, I grabbed for the roll of paper towels perched trimly in its stainless steel upright holder. I spun back toward the abomination on my table.

The sticky pool had spread. As I stared blankly, the wet mass at the center made an obscene burping noise and fresh gushettes of fluid pumped outward, fanning in an obscene parody of ripples in a pool, spilling over the edge of my table. The horrid plopping noise reverberated throughout the room, splatters violated the perfection of my floor. I dropped to my knees frantically, wads of paper towels in both hands, swabbing ferociously. The pool had turned into a raging falls as each sickly slurping beat, (for it was a beat, a beat, the beat of the heart at the center of my table), sent fresh thick torrents of crimson over the edge, splattering, marking the floor, marking the walls, marking me.

Now there was pounding. The door rattled against its frame with the force of it. Pounding behind my eyes as I swiped at the blood on my floor, on my walls. Waded bits of paper towels in my hands were soaked through, falling into soggy blobs, sticking in the brick red mess. The flow went on and on; I couldn't stem it.

The door behind me burst open. They pulled me from my spotless floor and roughly cuffed my hands. I glanced behind me as they shoved me from my house. The counters gleamed. The smell of peaches floated on the air. My table glowed at the center of the room, empty.