Painting

She had given me her silver bracelet with one last request as her breath shuddered to a stop. Sitting in a pool of her scarlet blood, I clutched the copper key I’d taken from her pocket to my chest. I knew what I had to do.

The yellow caution tape around the house was broken, some parts of it buried in the filthy mud, only a vague warning. Across the street, the lights were on. A single tree crouched on the lot, withering in the bitter winter. There was one last heart-shaped leaf clinging to life, and as I watched, it fell, defeated at last.

I heard the copper key click loudly in the lock as I turned it. The house was quiet, but the excitement was tangible in the air. The house knew what was coming, and it was bracing itself. I could feel it watching.

There in the chair that she had painted white. He was hunched over, body jerking with wrenching sobs. The chair creaked every time his body shuddered. Thirteen cents, one dime and three pennies, lay on the table next to him. Just thirteen cents was all that was left. His hands gripped the peeling window-frame that faced their backyard, his backyard. It was her favourite view, her own backyard with her garden and the oak tree they planted years ago.

Just thirteen cents. It was gone: his money, his love, his life.

“She’s dead.”

He turned, terror in his green eyes. Of course, he hadn’t known I would be coming; he had been waiting for the police. His sobs had been so loud that he hadn’t heard the rustle of my clothing as I pulled it out the belt of my blue dress.

I did not wait for him to speak, to beg, to explain his grief, to hear his search for redemption. I clenched my hand and the barrel exploded. The bare walls looked so much nicer painted with his brains.

With a grin, I turned the gun on myself and ate the barrel.

I would blow my brains to the moon, and the fragments of my skull would take years to fall back to this disgusting shit-hole we call our home.