* * *
Roger smelled smoke, but he thought it was another side effect of all his damned pills. He hated taking all these damned pills his damned doctor kept prescribing and that damned pharmacist kept filling and his damned wife kept picking up and putting in the little days and nights of the week pill machine dispenser that would ring its damned chime every twelve hours rain or shine to tell him that it was time to take all the damned pills that supposedly kept him alive but had so many damned side effects that life didn’t hardly seem worth living. His mouth was always dry no matter how much damned water he drank. His damned joints always ached. His damned food tasted like ash. He was either constipated or had diarrhea all the damned time. He had gas both damned ways and his damned gout was constantly flaring up even though he took all those damned pills to keep the damned gout from flaring up. It just wasn’t worth it anymore.
“Damn it all to hell, Stephanie! It’s just not worth it anymore!”
She wasn’t listening to him. She was sticking her face in the window and talking on the damned phone and not paying him any attention. She never paid him any damned attention except to make him take the damned pills. He wondered why she even bothered to keep him alive because she never wanted to hear what he had to say or cared about what he wanted to do. Their whole damned existence together had come down to her not so gentle damned reminders to take his damned pills. It didn’t make any sense. She didn’t even really talk to him anymore. She used to talk to him. Now she talked at him. She ordered him around like a five year old and punished him like a five year old when he tried to act like a 75 year old which, to her, was not that far off a damned five year old when it came to how he should be treated.
“What’s out the damned window that’s so damned important, Stephanie?” Because if he said her name enough, maybe she turn her damned head around to answer him.
“Shush up, Roger. I’m trying to call the fire department. Denise Drabos’ house is on fire and Gil Hamilton just went on in like a one-armed fool to save her and the cell phone isn’t getting any kind of signal.”
“Oh.”
He would have brought up that it was her damned fool idea to get rid of the old house phone and just rely on that damned cell phone that she took with her when she went into town leaving him with no damned way to call anyone if he had a damned problem like a heart attack or a stroke or any one of the damned side effects of the medication. He would have brought it up but she probably would punish him in some little way for backtalking her so he didn’t bring it up.
He also didn’t let her know that he wasn’t going to sit by and let a couple of good folks burn without seeing if he could do something about it. It wasn’t neighborly. So while she kept pushing the damned buttons on a phone that obviously wasn’t going to work because the damned tower tree thing had crashed down on the house, he ran across the street to do something. As he opened the front door of the house, smoke came pouring out at him and he realized that this was a damned fool idea. But he was going to do this because he had to do something, because someone had to do something and no one else was around to do it. And he was tired of doing nothing. For years he had done nothing but take pills to stay alive in a life that had become a series of days doing nothing waiting to die. In any case, he figured he was taking at least one damned pill to protect him from all the damned smoke. Everything tasted like ash anyway.
Roger let the smoke pour out as he went into the house.
* * *
Stephanie looked up from her phone and out the window and saw the smoke engulf Roger as he went into the house.
“Oh. Roger, no.” It came out of her mouth without sound because she was unable to breath as she watched the house collapse into smoke and flames. She tried to catch her breath, but it was lost to her. She thought about trying to catch it again and realized that she didn’t want it anymore and she let it go as she let go.
Lakebridge: Spring (Supernatural Horror Literary Fiction) Page 47