Rache

The following story is one based on the staple literary theme: revenge. How far will someone go to achieve it? How crazed can someone normally sane and rational become? After a long literary tradition of both brilliant and chilling stories of vengeance, here goes my amateur attempt. If it offends, forgive. If it chills, I succeed. If it fascinates, comment, and feed my ego. By the way, this is a thousand words, so this is my entry for both today (Wednesday) and tomorrow (Thursday).

Lester Jones walked slowly up to his house. A drab two-story, brick, faded and aged, like Lester himself. A drab house, in a drab town. Lester shuffled up the walk, his body bent and old, but still strong, a coalminer’s body. He’d worked in the mines since he was sixteen until it closed down five years prior. He and his wife lived of his meager pension and his job as a foreman for a construction company and her job as an elementary school librarian. Lester allowed himself a small smile at the thought of Joy Jones, for she’d been beautiful and they’d been happy once. Many, many years ago. He smiled broader as he thought of Thumper, his black Scottie dog. Lord knows, the one creature on earth Lester Jones loved was that dog, he’d probably have paid more attention to Thumper than his kids had he had any. Keying open the lock, Lester was surprised to find that Thumper wasn’t rushing down the stairs to welcome him. “Probably just napping”, he thought “After all, the old boy is getting on in years”. Still the disappointing feeling unsettled him, and he slipped quietly into the dining room, where Joy was to serve him dinner. He sat in an old dark wood chair, and waited for his wife’s entrance, while he stared at the old table, the worn and mended table cloth, stained with decades’ worth of meals, grease smears, wine stains and cigarette burns. He waited, in the dim light of the cheap plastic hanging lamp above him, the light a reddish orange thing that made him think of the days when the house felt like home. Joy walked in presently, holding Lester’s dinner plate in her hands, its contents letting off a pleasant warm steam. She was a serious, strict looking woman, with a tired lined face, like someone whose life has been very difficult and unhappy. Her hair was once bouncy and blonde, but was now ashy gray and pulled back from her face. Her eyes, once filled with light and life, blue and dancing, were now flat and dull. She set the plate in front of Lester, and wordlessly turned back to the kitchen to fix him something to drink and presumably check on dessert. The meal for the evening was as follows: some form of meat, served up in a thick orange and tangerine sauce, which let off a heavenly aroma, which was accompanied by wild Chinese rice, which in turn was topped by a heavy black sauce and four cranberries. Joy walked back in wordlessly and presented Lester with a Guinness in a tall glass. He ceremoniously took a sip of the beer and began his meal. It was absolutely delicious, perhaps the most delicious meal Joy had served him in a long while, but something felt wrong. At first he thought it was because of Thumper’s prolonged absence. It hurt him slightly, to think perhaps the dog loved him less, or that he’d begun to age so terribly. But as Lester took another bite, he realized that it was because of the meal itself. The meat, though soft and delicious, tasted wrong somehow. As if it was incorrect for it to be on his plate. The rice was fine, sweet and sour and something a chef could be proud of. However, his taste buds couldn’t fully appreciate the rice, as the meat was so preoccupying. He was even sure what meat it was. It definitely wasn’t beef; it wasn’t that strong, that hard. It wasn’t chicken either; it was less greasy and lacked that trademark chicken taste. It wasn’t salty like pork either, and didn’t taste like lamb or goat. As he took another sip of the beer that so reminded him of sea water, Joy began to speak to him. She spoke in the soft but commanding voice of a librarian. “I’m leaving you Lester. I simply cannot take you anymore. You’ve killed my soul you see. God, how long has it been since you loved me? Since I loved you? When did we kill this? Maybe when you started sleeping ‘round with Jenny Reilly. Don’t give me that look, you knew I knew. And God damn you Lester Jones you’ve loved a dog more than me.” She paused, as if to take a breath, but mostly so she could stop herself from crying. Lester looked at her, and realized he didn’t know her. In fact, were he to think about it, the woman he’d shared a bed with for twenty three years had long since become a stranger. Joy seemed to have controlled herself, so she looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I hate you Lester. I think I always will. I may have loved you once, but never again. Do you hear me?” He stared at her, unused to them speaking so much to each other, and surprised to find that a spark of passion had crept into her eyes. Mechanically he took another bite of the sickly sweet meat and a sip of beer. Where was Thumper? He didn’t really care what Joy was saying, if she wanted to leave, so be it, but where was his dog? If anything, the only thing making him anxious was the fact that he wanted to see his beloved animal, and perhaps the next thing on his mind was the disgustingly delicious meat, whose origin he still hadn’t managed to pinpoint. “Joy?” he ventured, “What kind of meat is this?” Joy smiled then, and for a second she was that young, beautiful school girl he’d fallen in love with so many years previous. “It’s Thumper”.