Insecticide 
by Amanda Caza


She stood at the window and watched him leave, her thoughts drained, her words broken. His shiny black Buick crept out of the drive like a guilty, adulterous
insect, and she could almost hear him praying that the neighbours would not see. But she saw, and for a moment he knew it, his face turning in the shadows. "Insect," she said, to the dog, to the air. "That man is a nothing but an insect."

She let go of the curtain, let it fall heavily, the red velvet blocking out the sun."Good," she said. "That's good." It felt right to be in the semi-darkness, secluded from the outside world; this was a time for cleansing, for mourning, for moving on.  She lit four candles and placed them around the room, where all was familiar, yet all was so strange. It was sad, how things remained after people had left, the only proof of their existence remaining in the mundane - slippers which the dog had chewed lying next to the fire; papers from the University scattered across the coffee table; his old woollen blanket draped on the back of the sofa; his still-warm cup of tea  balancing on the arm; and a biscuit, a half-eaten biscuit, eternally unfinished in the saucer.

He'd tried to deny it, of course - don't they all - but she knew that he would, she'd been warned in the letter - after all, who would admit it?

"Come on, Janice," he'd said to her. "Are you really going to believe some eighteen year old floozy from the Midlands over me, your husband, who just happens to be unlucky enough to be her professor?"

2
No, she said in her heart, in her head, no, of course not, I love you...But the letter burned in her pocket, warmed with her sweat and stained by the truth - a truth that she had to admit to, a truth which he had to face.

"Things like this happen all the time," he said, eyes glued to his paper. "You know what young girls are like; you were one too, once, remember. After all, that was how we met, my little estudiante. All those sessions in the store cupboard - don't tell me that you've forgotten."

He stood up, leaving a dent in the sofa, and she knew there and then that he'd lied. "Tea darling? Yes, I think we'll have some tea. We're out of Darjeeling, so will you have Assam?"

She nodded her head from her position at the window,turning when he left to walk towards the fireplace, the large marble fireplace which she'd salvaged from her parents  house. As she stared into the flames, she wondered to herself - could they ever be salvaged, could they ever be saved? Or would it be better to self-destruct, to self-demolish, safely? She narrowed her eyes like a gypsy seer, but still, the fire said
nothing.

He walked up behind her and gave her some tea, a biscuit resting in the saucer; so incongruous, so ignorant, so utterly devoid of feeling - so  him - that she smashed it into the fireplace with all the force she could muster.

"There was a letter, John - it's all in the letter! And do you know who sent it to to me?"

 3
His face went ashen as he sank beneath her rage.
             
"Her parents! Because she's pregnant!"

He went pink, red, redder, his pale-blue fish eyes bulging, the struggle for air rasping in his throat, the biscuit that was lodged there making him gurgle as he turned from red to purple to blue - and for a moment, for a fragmentary moment, she watched, and took pleasure in the watching, and wondered if there was such a thing as Divine retribution after all. Then she found herself upon him, pulling him, wrenching him, cracking his ribs from behind with an unholy strength that surprised him - and suddenly the biscuit was out, out of his body, out of his mouth, propelled like a discus from his gullet, flying across the room like a mushy UFO - and suddenly, she started to laugh.

She laughed and laughed and laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks, which grew redder and redder like apples that had been left for too long on the tree. She laughed as if there was no tomorrow, as if there was no yesterday, and as if there was hardly any today. And when she stopped laughing, she said to him "When you get your breath back, you're leaving."

As he sat up, teary-eyed and blue-tinged, John saw his wife for the first time. "I'm so sorry, Janice," he cried with remorse, as he buttoned up his trench coat and tied the belt tight. "I really am sorry. I'm an insect."

She watched him go at the window, his shiny black car like a beetle. "An insect", she said, to the dog, to the demons. "Yes, he jolly well will be."