The Place Part 9

My wife does this thing when she walks in the door. She says “Honey, I’m home… Whoops! I forgot I wasn’t married.” It’s what Michelle Pfeiffer says in Batman Returns when she comes back from work. It’s funny, I think.

This time, she said her thing, but it sounded flat and ran out of energy at the end. She moved swiftly from speaking to listening. Hearing the infernal mechanism.

Thanks god, I thought, even though I never doubted for a second it was real, and then I got scared she would be angry at me.

”What is that?” she said.

I could not explain it otherwise than with the truth. Anything else would have been too unbelievable. And when she lifted her head from the empty box, I could see the cold mask of anger.

”It was the only thing we had from that place,” she said, “And you wasted it away on stupid curiosity. You have always been too weak to control your urges.” She shook her head in disappointment.

”So what are we going to do about this? We should unite against a common enemy, I think.”

She shook her head again. And then nodded magnanimously. “Alright, mister scientist. So what is the plan?”

I was glad she asked, because I had one. A great plan.

Posted by: Paweł Kowaluk