JOHN NETTLE'S DEATH THROE
by
Wanda Morrow Clevenger
A distant rooster call heralded dawn as needles of light slipped through the fog shrouding John and Clara Nettle's rundown farmhouse. Scraggly patches of brown grass dotting a neglected yard were akin to old scabs left chronically unhealed–picked at one too many times. This sunrise, like legions be-fore, lit nothing beyond dry dirt the house squatted on. Dead silence hung in the air; it appeared no life, human or beast, inhabited the place. Another faint cockcrow braved the day, then quiet settled in again.
Inside, the house was quieter still. Cobweb architects lay in their lonely sanctums, curled into brittle bundles. Rooms were sparsely furnished, containing not one jot more than was absolutely re-quired. The trifles weren't new, but not particularly aged either–more like worn-out shadows of another era. Centered in the kitchen was a chrome and red vinyl dinette set with jaunty diamond cut-out chair backs. Last two remaining chairs were striped with duct tape, an unsympathetic repair job. Same as the spiders, the tape had long given up the ghost. Yellowed padding tufts hung beneath like a pregnant beagle belly. His chairs, like everything in John Nettle's house, were past saving.
A thin fold of newspaper opened to the obituary section was centered on the tabletop. One small convenience, a rusty enamel coffeepot, stood on the stove's back burner waiting for its part in the morning ritual. Also at the ready, a pair of stained, chipped mugs bearing the faded marital sentiments: HIS and HERS.
Summer dogged on in defiance of the month evidenced by the wall calendar. Its endearing ad-vertising print depicted a girl with an oversized umbrella and touted quote:When It Rains, It Pours. Anyone with eyes could see summer had passed; cool mornings and evenings held true to the season. But sweltering afternoons deceived, as if cast into perpetual perdition. Under the little ca-lendar girl's watchful vigil, time continued in its sluggish march.
Another day. Clara held motionless when the metallic rattle of the alarm clock jarred the old man awake, felt John startle from the mattress, heard grunting, bed springs shrilling at this weight shift.
“Get up woman. It's morning,” he commanded.
She flinched and bolted from her opposite side without uttering a word.
Effort to fully rise from the bed, be free of it, and her, produced grotesque moans. She anxiously donned her robe and ratty house shoes. Hurried flip-flap of slippers against linoleum was inception. Followed with cooking odor and coffee brewing. And John's insistent distemper. Under her breath, Clara repeated a circadian mantram, Satan is awake and I am in hell with him.
She rushed to get breakfast on the table, daring a wishful glance outdoors. Past flimsy curtains stretched bleak and unchanged cyclic. If only she could leave the house, breath fresh air, maybe some-how she could escape John's wrath. Heavy footsteps plodded closer. Dire panic rose, he'd want his breakfast ready.
Hurry. Her hands maneuvered in surreal, memorized manner while her mind scattered in a frenzy of questions: When did everything change? Why couldn't she remember anything from before this cursed time? When did insanity consume them? Did a demon creep forth, collect its evil due, and slither away with their souls? She prayed for the horror to end, but the relief she desperately sought seemed trapped in the same unrelenting purgatory as was the unceasing Indian-summer.
Feeling his pleasure in her torment, each daybreak offered transfigure of fresh hate and humilia-tion, birth of reiterate repulse. Clara was entwined in John's nightmare, sensing, tasting, breathing his equaled intolerance, begging for certain release of convenient death. She knew he never loved her; he married a servant, not a mate. She married out of fear of becoming a spinster. Was this the price paid for having settled, for having betrayed God's sacred covenant?
Mute as the grave, John clattered a chair away from the table and sank into it. A steaming plate presented. Momentarily forgetting herself, Clara asked, “Do you want coffee?”
“Don't I always want coffee?”
She recoiled, prickles streaming from arms to back to neck, then quickly poured bitter liquid into the cup that read: HIS. What was wrong with her? How stupid could she be, he always had coffee. Same breakfast every morning and same cup of coffee.
John glared at her, then stated point-blank, “I should've killed you years ago when I had the guts. If not for rotting in hell for eternity . . . trust me.” She cowered from the stinging words and his cold, dead eyes, searched the world outside the window again. Empty.
Attention shifted to the meal before him, John's fork grated a forget-me-not china pattern–Clara's departed mother's china. The irritating sound and coffee slurping infuriated her, pounded in her head like a sledgehammer. Ugly thoughts screamed. Horrible creature. Unclean stench. Repulse beyond comprehension. Why did he continue to live? Why wouldn't he die and free her from his constant presence?
John's fork stabbed upward, requesting more food. She watched the little pitchfork's movement, and for just a second a wicked smile formed as his image turned inert and bloody, head flopped, fork protruded from his jugular. Her mind wandered darkly in circles: lacing his breakfast with rat poi-son; suffocation in the night–no, he could wake up and overpower her; rendering unconscious with the coffee pot, then a long, long sleep down the well was do-able. But poison was best, in HIS coffee mug. Yes, that would finish this reign.
Perhaps sensing her nefarious thoughts, he growled, “Get this garbage out of my sight. You never could cook. You never could do anything worth shit.” She complied, and her hand shook when she returned to pour him a second cup of coffee, although he didn’t appear to take notice.
Her own meal in hand, Clara at last sat, loathing strangling her heart. He belched, impervious of his gross offensiveness and her proximity to it.
In almost predestined cue, John reached for the newspaper in its usual place and began scanning the obits–checking out who recently bought-the-farm, kicked-the-bucket, ate-the-bullet, or otherwise went to their just reward. Was undisputed fact he hated life, hated his wife more, relished in the know-ledge that he had outlasted most of his former classmates, emphasized by pointing out reading the obits was the only enjoyment he had left in life, 'cause he sure didn’t get any shackled to Clara.
He mumbled at the print, pausing to offer snide snorts of approval over the notices whole-heartedly endorsed. Clara kept her eyes downward, avoiding visual contact for as long as possible, until she heard a deep inhale. She rose, backed away from the table, and from him. John's face turned blood red, the flush swarming down his neck painted bulging veins purple.
He nearly leaped from the table, kicking his chair backward in the delirium. Froth seeped from the corners of his mouth. A demonic screech rose from the depths of a destitute spirit, forming into an unworldly howl, “Damned Lucifer! This is blasphemy!”
“What is it?” Clara's voice cracked, “What’s happened?”
“Some imbecile put my obit in the newspaper.” Saliva rained down John's chest. “This rag says we're dead. Says we murdered each other.” He lurched forward. Clara jerked away, one house slipper skidding across the room. “I strangled you because you poisoned me. It says we've been in the ground ten years.”
Pages flung at Clara levitated, separated into flapping sheets which slowly circled above until gaining tornado strength. The pair trembled on their knees, thunderous booming dwarfing their shrieks. Then utter silence. The newspaper drifted back to the table. Disembodied questions vibrated in the void, “What the hell is this? Who's done this? When I find out who's responsible, I'll torture them for all eternity.”
***
Another day. Clara held motionless when the metallic rattle of the alarm clock jarred the old man awake, felt John startle from the mattress, heard grunting, bed springs shrilling at this weight shift.
“Get up woman. It's morning,” he commanded.
She flinched and bolted from her opposite side without uttering a word.
Effort to fully rise from the bed, be free of it, and her, produced grotesque moans. She anxiously donned her robe and ratty house shoes. Hurried flip-flap of slippers against linoleum was inception. Followed with cooking odor and coffee brewing. And his insistent distemper. Under her breath, Clara repeated a circadian mantram, Satan is awake and I am in hell with him.
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