Had to give this a go – I liked this prompt Paschal. It wrote itself.
She was radiant as she came through the door. She was finally going to leave him. Things had been good at the start, but they changed over time and lately she didn’t know what to make of it. He scared her a little bit. He was always nice. Treated her with respect. He was patient and he seemed happy. At least he smiled all the time. Trouble was, the smile never moved up to his eyes. He was too controlled and she had known for some time that she was going to have to get out. Now that she had met someone, the time had come. She would tell him tonight after supper. Her bags were already packed and in the trunk of her car. Supper was cooked and on the table. They would eat, she would get through it somehow. Then she would tell him and she would be free.
He carefully pulled the screed across the last of the concrete and looked back at the new patio. It was going to be a great place to barbecue. Neil Youngs’ After The Gold Rush was playing on the stereo and and he was sweating a bit but it was all good. He was tired but he sang quietly “I was lyin’ in a burned out basement with a full moon in my eyes”. He had stayed up late to do the prep work. It took a deep hole to get her and a good sand base in before daylight. Once he had that part done he could work during the day and it was now afternoon and he was nearly finished. He was ready for a cool lemonade and a shower. He was going to enjoy this new patio. The house would go back to the way he liked it. Everything in it’s place. No one to wonder what he did in the basement at night. He might even extend this patio some more before the summer’s end.
Mercy, girl. I don’t know how far you’ve gone back in the Miss Alister archives, but she’s been known to put a few of her characters away in some grisly ways: this might just be Exhibit A for a case of separated at birth.
Poor thing. She knew something was up, she just didn’t know that she was going down. That second paragraph is sly diabolical menace, cousin to the wacky deadpan humor in the Coens’ run with No Country for Old Men, friend-o.
Everything in its place. Oo-wee.
Ms Atwood would be right proud.
Nice one
Paschal – evidently I need to spend some time in those archives. Always seemed to me that evil is banal. We expect obvious monsters who are self aware and quite content with their vileness. The mustache twirling, laughing, villain of Dudley Do-right fame. The truly frightening real evil is not self aware. Has no idea that it is evil – it just goes through it’s day, doing it’s evil thing and assuming that the rest of the world thinks and acts as it does and if it not then it is not worthy of notice. It looks and sounds like everyone else on the outside but peel off the skin and there is rot underneath of a whole other magnitude of rottenness (?). Then on the other hand maybe I’ve just watched too many episodes of Criminal Minds 🙂
Dee: Your comment explains a bit more just what you were trying to demonstrate in the second paragraph. “He’s” just another working stiff with a screed to wield: It took a deep hole to get her and a good sand base in before daylight. You gotta do what you gotta do, and maybe top it all off with a cool lemonade and a shower.