Buried

Mystery | Dark | Flash Fiction |

I’m Marie Statham, and I could no longer roll that rock up the hill.

Please, constable, I say to myself in the mirror through scarlet lips that hadn’t been licked by that vibrant, cosmetic paint since Adam was a lad. It washes my already-too-pale face out, but it was an impulse buy at Boots. Under the eyes are dark, but I laugh when I remember they’ve been far worse than that. Dark eyes are better than puffy, red shiny eyes that make me look like some human crossed with a frog. They’re just dark under there now. There’s nothing I can do about that.

I’m still staring at myself in the mirror when the doorbell rings. It makes me jump. I feel apologetic, but at the same time, I haven’t seen the woman on the other side for years.

The dog died, the dog died. Oh, that’s the dog.

That dog died. How else can I explain? They’ll think I’ve gone mad.

It’s not the police. It’s a delivery driver dropping a slim package off on the doorstep. They only knock or ring to let you know they’ve appeared in the street; they don’t even check to see if you’ve received the shit you’ve ordered. That’s someone else’s problem, I suppose.

It’s a good job the driver’s gone, actually. I lean forward into the open doorway and the belt on my dressing gown comes loose. I haven’t dressed since that hot bath an hour before. I have plans, you see.

I’m going out. I’m going out, and no one can stop me.

The sirens will come, I’m sure, but for now, I am a free woman.

I slather some cream on my hands. It’s L’Occataine, and I bought it for myself. The verbena scent is so fresh, so strong with its citrus fragrance that it makes even your nose hairs tingle.

The cream softens my chapped hands as I rub it in further and further until it makes the skin red, and stings the cuts on my palms. I must stop now.

They’re going to come for me, but a secret shared is a… I can’t remember. Anyway, let me tell you. My life has been something of a rhyme. A song. A travesty.

Cook it, eat it, wash it up. Cook it, eat it, wash it up.

Clean it, use it, clean it again. Clean it, use it, clean it again.

Put it away, get it out. Put it away, get it out.

Cook it, eat it, wash it up.

And so it went every single day.

I looked at him often. I used to look at him and wonder if the old him was under there, somewhere, but then I started just looking at him as though he was a subject to study, and I wondered if he ever went through this daily rhythm. He disgusted me. He wore the grease and curry stains on his rounded shirt until I could bring myself to clean them off. I was surprised that I didn't also wipe his arse. That was all to come, I’m sure.

I chewed bees, bolts and nails for breakfast while he enjoyed his freshly cooked eggs. He was predictable. He was safe in the sense that he was predictable. He’d leave his plate there, abandoned. Every day he would do this, because we all knew that the fairies would clean it up.

If he had a daily rhyme for his life in our home, my guess is that his would be:

Eat it, eat it, eat it.

Use it, use it, use it.

Get it out, get it out.

Every time he’d go to our one toilet, I’d find myself muttering, take as long as you want. Take even longer. No one else needs the toilet anyway.

He read his paper, barely glancing in my direction as I talked about how the day had been for me. The occasional, “mhm”. I told him about the kids, the school, and the neighbours. It was just,“Mhm.”

Fine. It was always fine. He was always happy with,“fine”.

Cook it, eat it, wash it up. Don’t eat too much though. You know, don’t, it’s not good for a woman to…

I was starting to look like my mother, or so he said. He said I looked like my mother. He didn’t like my mother. My mother is fat. He didn’t want me to be fat like my mother. I suppose I didn’t want to be sad, like my mother. I certainly didn’t want to be unhappy, like my mother.

I decided that I would like to be fat out of spite.

Reader, bear in mind it had been almost twenty years before I snapped. Twenty. That’s not nothing.

A friend from the W.I asked me to go to the cinema with her. I felt special. I thought, oh, maybe her husband ignores her too. Maybe we can be fat together and eat as much popcorn as we want. I would like to have a friend. I would like to eat popcorn and laugh and actually talk to someone and have them talk to me.

“You sure you want to wear that?” he asked as I checked myself in the porch mirror.

Dig it, move it, dig it up.

Dig it, move it, dig it up.

Roll it, roll it, let it drop.

Lift it, drop it, lift it, drop it.

Pat it. Pat it. Pat it down.

The soil persisted. It was still under my fingernails, long after the incident. I scrubbed it away with the nail brush, laughing hysterically with the running water as my backing track. I’d done one of the most insane things I’ve ever done. I smashed his face in, and made sure to get out of there before I could be affected, too. It was under the soil now, and couldn’t climb back out. I kept saying to myself “What have I done? What have I done?”

If anybody was looking, I'd just tell them that the dog died. I’d made a terrible mess of the garden, but that’s what the dog did. The dog dug all those holes.

Surprisingly, weeks went by before the discovery.

It wasn’t the police who came to me with the remains. It was the children. They wanted to know what was going on.

It was my eldest son who laid the pieces out along the dining table. I didn’t look away, not once.

My child presented me with the remains of my husband. What he was, and what he meant.

Every framed photograph of him, cracked and buried. My wedding ring, buried. Every love letter an older version of him had written to me, buried. My son wanted to know why I’d torn my head out of every picture.

“He’s gone now,” I said, surprised at the breaking in my voice. It was for the children, it must have been. “But there’s no need to get upset. He is having you this weekend.”

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Thanks for reading. If you like my fiction, I currently have three novels out in the world. You can see them here.