The Anniversary

There's a child's red dump truck floating down the street past my front yard. I haven't left the house in three days since the rain started and I'm starting to feel edgy and sluggish all at once. Sherman who has been hiding in the tub since the wind picked up is starting to smell like a moldy blanket. I need to run some errands but I can't go out. Not today. Today is the day she disappeared. I mean, the anniversary of her disappearance. Five years ago now. Today is never a good day to open the door.

Three days ago, the first storm of the season announced itself by rushing over the fields and slamming against the walls of our houses. The whole row on our street faces an open field, marsh really, leaving us like a windbreak to the rest of the neighborhood without the added benefit of a decent stone wall. Our houses are almost all newer homes. Construction was carried out with consideration for cheap materials and expediency. In short, they went up fast and cheap. Margaret complained. Even when I painted the living room her favorite color. She complained about the depressing view of the fields. "Bleak," she called it. She complained about how somebody's kid or pet could get sucked up in the marsh. She complained about the carpet and the windows so I changed those too. Margaret worries a lot. Worried, I mean.

The back door is locked. The front door too. Good. Sherman doesn't understand. He still thinks she's coming home. He doesn't understand when I say she can't. I don't know why I keep him; for company I guess. He always did like Margaret more, stupid dog, no matter how much I feed him, but he knows the day, always. Even through the rain and his own damp dog odor he can smell her under the threshold. I'm waiting for the bell to ring, but I won't answer it. Sherman is sitting at the door now; his tail is wagging in that slow rhythm that means he's waiting.

God! The bell is ringing! I thought that after five years, I would be used to this. Sherman, quiet! He's whining and scratching at the door, but the stench! A swamp-ridden miasma is seeping under the door and I can't breathe it anymore. I'm dragging Sherman down the hall to lock him in the bathroom but the scratching at the door won't stop.

She can't get in, I know, but I can't stand it anymore. The entire front of the house smells like rotting swamp. Damn it! Why won't you stay where I put you, Margaret! The scratching! Complaining as always. I have to retreat to the back bedroom where I can't hear her or smell her. Tomorrow maybe the rain will stop and I can wash the filth off my doorstep, until next year. Tomorrow Margaret will quit complaining.

THE END

Bio: M. N. Tarrint is a pen name for Brandy King, a resident of Arizona, where the snakes are smaller, but poisonous. Her last appearance in Aphelion was in the November '13 issue with Box of Bones.

E-mail: M.N. Tarrint

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