Write a Novel in November, Post #3

 The sun was hovering over the field behind the house as though there were a thousand strings wrapped around each ray and then staked to the wet ground. She liked how the sun seemed to level with her, how outside the window she could see its middle growing larger as the day went on and she went on to wash the dishes or fold the napkins or wipe down the kitchenette.

"Good morning." He kisses her behind her neck. He seems to hover there for a moment, then swiftly walks away to open the refrigerator, to pour himself a glass of orange juice. He pours from the ceramic pitcher, letting a little juice fall onto his blue and gold striped socks. He feels warm and cold and lets the acidic liquid sit on the gums in his mouth, expanding between his teeth, letting the inside of his cheeks burn a little before he swallows. He sits down at the kitchenette, which faces the window, and watches the middle of the sun contract, and feels his belly contract, and he is warm and cold at the same time.

"It's time to get rid of it, don't you think?" she leans the back of her head against the refrigerator so that she is facing him but looking up.

"No, not today."

"But it's Saturday."

"Exactly. Why would I want to waste my Saturday?"

He usually works on Saturdays, weeding and shoveling until six or seven in the evening. He's usually too tired to put his dinner in his mouth. Like the last Saturday when he came home with a welt on the back of his neck and when she asked him how it had happened he said it was the animals and she thought to herself what kind of animal could so such a thing? but instead of saying words she sang them with plates and forks and glasses of lemonade. He picked up the fork and looked down at his plate. He picked up the fork and let it drop onto the plate. Then everything became very high pitched. He could hear the birds from the field, and the wind passing through the wet petals in the morning. He could see the sun losing air, collapsing into the wet ground like orange peels and orange leaves. He began blinking rapidly. The blood rushed from his head and his arms and his belly into his throat, and filled his mouth with smooth blood. The smooth blood was on his gums and between his teeth, filling the inside of his mouth. When he could no longer hold all the blood inside, he let a little drip on his toes and he was warm and cold at the same time.

Her singing got louder and became more like a scream. Her singing got a lot of attention from the neighbors and police, from the ambulance and the doctor, from the insurance company and his landscaping company. And although he didn't blame his wife, he blamed her. He blamed her superbly white skin, the darkness in her cornea, and the songs in her throat.

He stands up with the glass of orange juice in his mouth, swishing, thinking about the sun and Saturdays and how there will be no more work on days like this, days that hover just behind the field where the animals live with a thousand strings wrapped around their necks and staked to the ground.