brainfreeze
15-02-2009, 02:13 AM
A Work In Progress....
“Stop it you son of a “ Maddy slipped from Mark’s grip and slid behind the bathroom door, turning the key to his fists weighing heavy on the other side of it. She slid down the cold tiled wall to the floor, cursing Mark beneath her breath, berating herself for his distress.
If only dinner was ready when he got in. If only baby wasn't crying. If only.
If only she had found those cigarette butts he hid above the door frame this morning, and in the very pillow slip on which she slept while he was up, and the stub left under the front door mat. A little trap, another test, set before going to work, failed by her, again. The lazy cow!
The least she can do is see that the house is spotless. It’s all he asks of her. She can do that, surely? It’s not even that she has to do it herself. She doesn’t. She has a maid for God sake. She only need instruct. Can’t she do that?
The sting of his palm throbs in her face against the water splashed on the ache. She should have listened to her flat mate way back. Before she moved in and married Mark, and had a baby with him. Back when Desire walked in on Mark with Maddy pinned to his big double bed in a passionate grip, telephone cored stretched and wrapped around her neck, Desire warned then that Mark was bad news. Maddy should have listened.
Mark is in the bath, door open, he is simmering down. Baby, thankfully has stopped crying and is sleeping angelically in his cot, like Maddy thought he would do before she had him, but mostly he doesn’t, he SHRIEKS. Neither of them get much sleep. Maddy gambled with the vacuum cleaner waking baby up as she gently pulled his bedroom door shut.
She is cleaning up. Sucking up small shards and splinters of glass a broom might miss, like the missile Mark launched at her head did, shattering itself against a print of a couple captured in a rare moment of tenderness, caught in a kiss. She doesn’t want the sharp edges of the debris to hurt the infant.
The whine of the machine has a hypnotic effect, tuning the tone of her surroundings down to a heavy hum, vibrating against the pain in the back of her head that has formed a lump. Hose in hand Maddy sets to work on what she doesn’teven realise until she actually carries it out, is her plan and intent.
She lays the pipe in her hand down gently, leaving the cleaner running and silently treads to the kitchen and back, returning with scissors in hand. Stooping to turn the vacuum cleaner off at the wall, she cuts the extension cord at the belly of the machine, like a midwife does the umbilical cord of a new born baby at birth, only these hands intend another kind of deliverance. Gently handling the severed end of the electric cord Maddy flicks the plug back on at the wall and stands up. She carries the live wire like a flame she doesn’t want to go out on a dark night to the bathroom and plunges it into the water with Mark.
“What the…” Mark yelped as the electricity popped with a thunder clap and the lights went out. The grey extension cord trailed from the wall, hanging limp in the grey afternoon light spilling through the window above the tub. The electric cable came to rest just below the water line, beneath a blackened scorch permanently etched into the bath with a bang, marking the moment of Maddy’s madness.
“Thank God I’m a ‘Luck-trician” Mark sneered in disbelief spilling from the bath.
“What the fuck are you doing? That hurt - no - it bloody tingled -HARD” Mark growled, towelling himself down vigourously. Then he backhanded a wide eyed cowering Maddy for her the harm she intended, the ungrateful bitch. Stamping passed her to reset the fuse box at the kitchen door, he commanded she following him.
“That is the trip switch, you stupid bitch” he educated her, calling a truce on today’s war games, already planning what lay next.
“Try that again and see what happens” he warns.
Shoulder earrings, eggshell carpets and verbal switch blades are the loving sentiments of their marriage. Mark knows Maddy's vulnerablilities and he exploits them. Neither he nor Maddy are fully aware that he does this. Maddy makes things worse when she retaliates back like this. Maddy is comfortably familiar with the prickling of Mark’s presence, to the extent that she misses Mark when she isn’t with him. They are oblivious to the self-destructive cycle they are in. She wants to please him.
Mark is right. Maddy is mad. Look what she just did! She has a lot to make up for after this. What if Mark threw her out? Where would she go? What would she do? She is lucky to have him, Mark reminds her. She had better watch herself, learn to be a good wife, try. That’s not too much to ask. Is it?
“Stop it you son of a “ Maddy slipped from Mark’s grip and slid behind the bathroom door, turning the key to his fists weighing heavy on the other side of it. She slid down the cold tiled wall to the floor, cursing Mark beneath her breath, berating herself for his distress.
If only dinner was ready when he got in. If only baby wasn't crying. If only.
If only she had found those cigarette butts he hid above the door frame this morning, and in the very pillow slip on which she slept while he was up, and the stub left under the front door mat. A little trap, another test, set before going to work, failed by her, again. The lazy cow!
The least she can do is see that the house is spotless. It’s all he asks of her. She can do that, surely? It’s not even that she has to do it herself. She doesn’t. She has a maid for God sake. She only need instruct. Can’t she do that?
The sting of his palm throbs in her face against the water splashed on the ache. She should have listened to her flat mate way back. Before she moved in and married Mark, and had a baby with him. Back when Desire walked in on Mark with Maddy pinned to his big double bed in a passionate grip, telephone cored stretched and wrapped around her neck, Desire warned then that Mark was bad news. Maddy should have listened.
Mark is in the bath, door open, he is simmering down. Baby, thankfully has stopped crying and is sleeping angelically in his cot, like Maddy thought he would do before she had him, but mostly he doesn’t, he SHRIEKS. Neither of them get much sleep. Maddy gambled with the vacuum cleaner waking baby up as she gently pulled his bedroom door shut.
She is cleaning up. Sucking up small shards and splinters of glass a broom might miss, like the missile Mark launched at her head did, shattering itself against a print of a couple captured in a rare moment of tenderness, caught in a kiss. She doesn’t want the sharp edges of the debris to hurt the infant.
The whine of the machine has a hypnotic effect, tuning the tone of her surroundings down to a heavy hum, vibrating against the pain in the back of her head that has formed a lump. Hose in hand Maddy sets to work on what she doesn’teven realise until she actually carries it out, is her plan and intent.
She lays the pipe in her hand down gently, leaving the cleaner running and silently treads to the kitchen and back, returning with scissors in hand. Stooping to turn the vacuum cleaner off at the wall, she cuts the extension cord at the belly of the machine, like a midwife does the umbilical cord of a new born baby at birth, only these hands intend another kind of deliverance. Gently handling the severed end of the electric cord Maddy flicks the plug back on at the wall and stands up. She carries the live wire like a flame she doesn’t want to go out on a dark night to the bathroom and plunges it into the water with Mark.
“What the…” Mark yelped as the electricity popped with a thunder clap and the lights went out. The grey extension cord trailed from the wall, hanging limp in the grey afternoon light spilling through the window above the tub. The electric cable came to rest just below the water line, beneath a blackened scorch permanently etched into the bath with a bang, marking the moment of Maddy’s madness.
“Thank God I’m a ‘Luck-trician” Mark sneered in disbelief spilling from the bath.
“What the fuck are you doing? That hurt - no - it bloody tingled -HARD” Mark growled, towelling himself down vigourously. Then he backhanded a wide eyed cowering Maddy for her the harm she intended, the ungrateful bitch. Stamping passed her to reset the fuse box at the kitchen door, he commanded she following him.
“That is the trip switch, you stupid bitch” he educated her, calling a truce on today’s war games, already planning what lay next.
“Try that again and see what happens” he warns.
Shoulder earrings, eggshell carpets and verbal switch blades are the loving sentiments of their marriage. Mark knows Maddy's vulnerablilities and he exploits them. Neither he nor Maddy are fully aware that he does this. Maddy makes things worse when she retaliates back like this. Maddy is comfortably familiar with the prickling of Mark’s presence, to the extent that she misses Mark when she isn’t with him. They are oblivious to the self-destructive cycle they are in. She wants to please him.
Mark is right. Maddy is mad. Look what she just did! She has a lot to make up for after this. What if Mark threw her out? Where would she go? What would she do? She is lucky to have him, Mark reminds her. She had better watch herself, learn to be a good wife, try. That’s not too much to ask. Is it?