Holding Pattern (729 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: crap:fiction
Rating: 1.37 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe <feral_pet.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2004-05-17 10:27:23 EDT
He watched her feed the smouldering cigarette butt through the infinitesimal crack at the top of the window. He hated that - she barely cranked the window down a half inch when she smoked in the car. She was adamant that the smoke was sucked out of the car faster that way. He preferred to open the window the whole way, and get a good breeze going. He considered keeping his mouth shut this time, but fuck it - he was bored, he had a headache, and she'd been irritating him for the last hour and a half. Her and her stupid 'Let's go spend the weekend with my parents.' Fucking seven hour drive, and for what? So he could enjoy forty eight hours of 'Maria, do you remember that nice boy Mark you were seeing in college? Did you know that he's a doctor now?' (Of course she fucking knows, you numb cunt, you rub it into her face every time you see her - with the unspoken subtext of 'Why oh why did you marry a nobody like Robert?')
He watched her put the window back up and felt that familiar dull frustration with her, like the throb of a rotten tooth. Fuck it.
'Are you actually allergic to fresh air?'
She rolled her eyes in that patented 'bitch queen of the universe' way. That was a nifty little trick she'd picked up from her mother. 'Are you going to start again? I've told you, the smoke gets--'
He cut her off. 'That's not the point, and you know it. You do this fucking bullshit JUST because you know it shits me. It's the only reason. All these little, nitpicky fucking things you do, just to get at me, and then you play wounded princess when you get a reaction.'
She sighed patiently. Goddamn her, she always did this, always tried to make him feel like a child. Even her voice was patient. 'Much as it might dismay you to learn this, Robert, not everything I do is about you. You're not the center of my universe, you know.'
'Oh believe me, I'm aware of that.'
'Exactly what is that supposed to mean?'
And here it was - The Fighting. They slipped into this pattern so easily, both of them taking a bitter pleasure in it. Attack, withdraw, circle, retreat, hit, score, hide. It never approached the physical - it wouldn't cross their minds to resort to that. Verbal sparring with undercurrents of hate, that was their thing. It didn't matter what the fight had started over. Eventually it'd fall into the same old words, the same arguments, the same points of contention.
'Oh? And when you got drunk and felt my sister's ass at our wedding, that was 'trying to make a point,' was it?'
'I'm very fucking surprised you managed to pull yourself away from those college boy waiters long enough to notice. But then I suppose that after Mark, college boys hold a special place in your heart.'
'Are we back to that again? I don't know how often I've tried to tell you.....'
And on. And on. And on. Until the speaking had become screaming and they were both furious. Until he'd had enough of her bitching, carping voice. Until she couldn't take another second of his droning speech. Until he reached across her to wind her window down, yelling about fresh air, and she tried to shove him away.
Until she lost control of the speeding car and it veered off the road, hit a low rock wall, and flipped, and rolled, and became a twisted lump of metal at the foot of the embankment. The tick-tick sound of the engine cooling was very, very loud.
They sat a little way from the car, holding hands like children, listening intently to the tall, nattily dressed man in the grey suit.
'So, as I said, you've both been good people. Not, however, great people. You don't get to go to heaven yet. You..' he checked his clipboard, 'Are designated for Limbo. You can spend the next, oh, hundred thousand years doing the same thing, over and over. Ever see 'Groundhog Day'? Like that, but you won't remember it. Each time will seem like the first. So.. what do you want to do?'
Robert looked at Marie. Marie looked at Robert. They both started to smile.
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He watched her feed the smouldering cigarette butt through the infinitesimal crack at the top of the window. He hated that - she barely cranked the window down a half inch when she smoked in the car. She was adamant that the smoke was sucked out of the car faster that way. He preferred to open the window the whole way, and get a good breeze going. He considered keeping his mouth shut this time, but fuck it - he was bored, he had a headache, and she'd been irritating him for the last hour and a half.
User Reviews
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-12-10 15:07:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Limbo
reason #5,747,774 that organized religion doesn't make sense.
Submitted by MandaPanda (user info) at 2005-01-27 00:00:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Congrats on winning UberBoobage!
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2004-09-12 02:28:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Falco (user info) at 2004-09-11 22:12:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Nice!
Submitted by Fixer (user info) at 2004-05-17 18:16:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2004-05-17 11:35:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
no, i thought the length was just fine. what would you want as your hundred thousand years of groundhog day, just a moment like this or a whole day? its up to preference.
though subtext usually goes unspoken as far as im aware...
im not sure what kind of moment id want, a 'fight' moment is good, but id want something a little more intense, one of those fights where you really pull out the daggers, and the make-up sex is equally intense.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2004-05-17 11:32:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Ah, true love... but, it didn't feel quite finished because all of the argument was seen from his perspective, but their decision clearly had to be mutual...
Submitted by euripidestrousers (user info) at 2004-05-17 11:00:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by lojope (user info) at 2004-05-17 10:34:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I liked it. But I didn't love it like I usually do your posts. It felt too short actually. But still, really good.