Photo by @felipepelaquim on Unsplash
It was a Sunday.
You could tell because the morning loafed around like some resigned animal given into acute exhaustion so that not even a pointed boot to the ribs could summon it at a call and instead it just laid there.
It was a Sunday, and people drooped about their living rooms and bedrooms as if fallen leaves: feet up, one sock on, one sock off, pillows crammed in faces—or else hunched over at the window, mug of coffee in hand and already tasting the sour apprehension of what could only mean the approach of a particularly dreadful Monday.
It was a Sunday, and it seemed like the weekend had already passed as inconsequentially and meaninglessly as it always did: waking up, amazed to still be in your own home, your own clothes—cans, bottles, cigarette butts lining the kitchen counters like uninvited houseguests, or at least houseguests who had certainly outstayed their welcome hours ago.
To think you could wake, blink once or twice and wonder why none of the mess had been swept up and taken away prior to you opening your eyes when the sun finally smacked you in the mouth. And damn it, why were these blinds left open all night?
It was a Sunday, and there would be no avoiding it now.
Hal’s wife Laurel jostled his shoulder gently at first, the way she used to in the mornings when they first started dating. They had been akin to young nymphs imprisoned by twisted sheets all night, and in the morning the bedding would be tossed to the floor in a fervor that bested their mutual hangover. They would laugh and play, laugh and play, until someone mustered up enough hunger to suggest a momentary standstill in the interest of ordering breakfast.
Hal squeezed both eyes tight and concentrated on appearing as languid and immobile as possible. He allowed his frame to sway with the rhythm of Laurel’s push and shove as she steadily increased in vigor, resulting in an elbow jab and finally a loud sigh before she slid from the bed.
He listened as her feet scuffed at the wooden floors before finally finding her slippers.
The apartment was frigid in the mornings. She pulled the pale lime yellow sheet towards her, leaving the quilt to remain behind with him. Draping the sheet over her head, she allowed it to mat down her tangled blonde hair and then fall about the rest of her body. Even with his eyes closed he could imagine her standing there, perfumed with the smell of skin and sleep, vaguely nun-like, approaching sainthood on the back of a roaring Harley Davidson.
He could see her like that, but she regarded all types of motorized cycles with disdain--motorbikes and scooters included. He had teased her often over making a purchase of one and she had stomped her feet as impetuously as a little girl until he had embraced her and held her close, the pair soon jostling with heaving bouts of laugher and a general air of resignation on Hal’s part.
He had enjoyed teasing her always, but over the years the instances had dwindled down less and less. At first, he believed her to have grown too sensitive for his particular style of humor and now ceased to remain a patron of the brand she herself had once touted as astute, uproarious--invigorating even. But now it seemed his shadowboxing play on words with her had missed their mark one too many times, landing harmful and debilitating blows to her person—remarks so off key, they left lingering bruises long after he believed apologies accounted for and matters settled.
Hal wondered if he himself had grown colder and therefore more callous over the course of the passing years.
He glared in the mirror oftentimes after a shave, his face a patchwork of crimson clotted cream. What had changed? Where in the course of navigating the human circuit had he veered so treacherously off course? He still possessed a modest youthfulness about himself at a slender 34 years old. He knew about five women at the office who would help him keep a secret if he so requested, at least two a great deal younger than he. Though he would never permit himself to engage in such trespasses, there was still something of merit in a thing like that and he could cherish the notion in secret like a long soak in a hot bath.
Through the open bedroom door he could hear the dribbling tick-tock of the coffee maker, and as the ebony broth brewed, thoughts and considerations percolated through the filter of a hung-over Sunday morning and Hal decided that today his wife would not drink her four cups alone.
He stepped into the living room wearing only his boxer-shorts, his somnolent frame tightening up in the chill of the room so that it lent his person an artificial impression of fitness. He stepped further into the room so that a ray of sunshine cut him across the chest in brightly alternating gashes he fancied gave him the appearance of a battle-worn tribesman solicited from the dark forests by the promise of warmth.
It was not so farfetched. He felt wildly savage, and his dreams were the stuff of some shadowy corridor from which he required escape.
He trod into the kitchen, sections of his skin still marked by the heat of his scars. Stalking quietly behind Laurel, he pounced and locked his arms around her waist in a loose embrace. He could prove his savagery to her, having emerged from the swamps ravenous for her body, her love, her essence. He had missed her so long, pined for her—but he did not possess the right words to make the moments natural to him, to lend his intentions some sort of recognizable fluidity.
“Hal, stop it.” His prey struggled to free herself from his tightening grasp. “Leave me alone. I’m exhausted.”
Hal increased his constriction, pushing his weight into her, forcing his face into the back of her loosely cropped skull, where even through the yellow sheet he could still rejoice in the smell of her shampoo and soon, the flavor of her dark recesses.
Something remarkable happened then: she stiffened her entire frame rigid and frozen as the coffee maker tick-tocked and bloomed from its steaming carafe.
It may have been a defense tactic, but Hal slackened his grip immediately. Even without words, the movements were all a clutter, maiming his resolve. Suddenly he felt ashamed of his near nakedness as if her reaction had revealed something unsavory about his inner self and prompted immediate retreat.
He returned to the cold bedroom thought the frigid living room, ignoring the stripes of light now emblazoned across the carpeting they had both chosen for its calm neutrality so that it would not conflict with the rest of the area’s décor.
He sat down and typed something into the web browser of his computer and then, as if he had forgotten, got up and closed the door, locking it behind him.
Outside, there’s a scene. A truck has hit a bicyclist and now the cops are trying to mop it all up. A single white sheet rests in the middle of the street, but no one can get anywhere close to it and so it rests out of reach.
Traffic on the avenue’s backed up for miles--horns blaring brutishly, hooting dumbly.
No end in sight.
James Maxwell resides in Philadelphia with his wife and young son, where he works for a consulting firm as an executive assistant. He graduated with an MA in English from Iona College and has been writing for close to two decades. His work has been featured in Walking Is Still Honest, Ijagun Poetry Journal, Cease, Cows, Scarlett Leaf Review, The Scene and the Heard, Indiana Voice Journal, Running Wild, and Allegory Ridge.