“She races through the room, fearful is she, yes indeed…”.

My fingers are moving without the help of my muscles now, I’ve gotten in the groove of

writing, and I don’t feel them slowing down anytime soon.

“He’s getting faster, moving with a sense of integrity she can feel seeping through

the cracks in the floorboard…”

My own gooseflesh is marking its territory all over my bare arms. The story that was

once a comfy seat in the back of my mind is now unraveling, as if once a ball of yarn, and

leaving a trial behind. Open endings and alternative, darker, maybe even scarier, paths are

swelling in the pink walls of my bulging mind. I keep writing on the path that I’m on, the

increasing intensity is gaining on me, like my fellow writers, I am bewitched by the story that

hides in caverns of my psyche.

“Running. We are running against the wind that holds me back. I feel him behind me. His

hand grab-

A hand reaches out and grabs my shoulder. I just about screeched when the angelic voice

of a beautiful woman sings to me.

“William you’ve been writing for hours, dinners ready, take a break!” Elizabeth, my wife,

moves closer to the crook of my neck and places a small kiss that sends more gooseflesh down to

my legs and swells my heart twice the size. She steals a glance at my paper wedged in between

my new typewriter, reads a line in disgust, and pulls me away.

 We move into the dining room, a beige room with a large, dark, wooden table in the

center. There is a white rug underneath the table that my mother-in-law picked out when we first

bought our house. I never cared for the rug, but it makes my wife happy, so I tug at my chair

until it lets loose of the carpets grasp and sit down without complaint.

In front of me sits a meaty, bloody steak, ripe as can be green beans, and a mountain of

cloud like mashed potatoes. As I cut into the monster steak, drops of blood drip from my knife

headed straight to the pristine white rug. The droplets of blood that hit the rug ring out like gun

shots. With every bead of blood, I jerk back.

BANG

The perfect rug now has a spot of deep scarlet red.

BANG

The curtains in our bedroom are of the same color. The same color as the blood that was

once keeping an animal alive and well. The same scarlet color you’d find seeping out of yourself

when a cut takes place on your skin.

BANG

But not any lousy cut, no. A deep cut shaped from a sharp object. The type of sharp

object like a blade driven into the writs of a depressed girl, or a knife that slips when peeling a

carrot or potato, or maybe that of a butcher knife that was maneuvered by the words of passion

driven into the heart that was once their captor.

“William? William are you alright?” Elizabeth is staring at me with the uncertainty of a

mother watching a child and his father work together to take the small boys training wheels off

his bike for the first time. The uncertainty in her eyes is the fuel to which motivates my writing. I

stare at her; the words are moving through my lips, but the sound of her voice is yet to be
answered. Her eyebrow raises as a questioning look overtakes her face. Her mouth slightly parts

open and out comes more bullet shots of scarlet red, dripping to the rug. I jerk back every time a

shot rings out; my eyes close yet my mouth stays wide open. On the last loud bang, I open my

eyes to find her slumped back, head draping over the chair. She looks like a corpse of two years.

There are three bullet holes formed in her decaying body. One on her shoulder, a hole with dried

blood surrounding it and leaving a long bloody line down to the waist band of her jeans, is left on

the white sweater she always wears. The sweater was a birthday gift she’d received from her

mother on her 22nd birthday. I never cared for the thing, it was tight, too tight, not that Elizabeth

didn’t have a fit body for it, she had a beautiful, lean body, that I liked in tight sweaters very

much, but only for myself to see. But it makes Elizabeth happy, so I continue to put it in the

dryer with the rest of our white clothing like she asks without a word. The second bullet hole is

in her right temple, barely visible through her messy blond hair. Her hair is glued to certain parts

of her face where the blood splattered. The third is to the right of her stomach, it too is

surrounded by a huge blotch of blood. That was her favorite outfit.

Is her favorite outfit.

I open my eyes and Elizabeth is back to normal. Her head is upright, looking at me as if I

were a crazed man, her sweater is back to perfect, eggshell, white, tight as always keeping all of

her angelic like curves in their right places, her hair is pushed back behind her ears, no longer

stuck to the sides of her face by the dried blood, and the best part, no more blood! I smiled at her

and told her how I needed to get back to writing. She looked frozen in her concern, not even

replying. I decided to leave before she could question what just happened. As I got up, I took one

last look at the three droplets on the rug. They laughed at me, mocking me, as I walked away.
 “I feel him behind me. His hand grabbed at my wrist. I scream loud and frantic pulling

myself away from his grasp and into the words of the wind. I was getting away; I could taste the

freedom on the tip of my tounge. Or…is that blood? I soon realize the singing angles I hear,

congratulating me as I escape, is actually the sound of that man’s pistol. The freedom I taste, I

soon realize, is the blood of my own head. I scre-“

The lights that surround me are bright; the brightest they’ve ever been. Mr. Johnson is

sitting next to me, studying me. The look of pure interest and uncertainty of my well-being on

his face reminds me of Elizabeth’s on that night. The night of the beautiful dinner. The night my

ugly rug became my favorite color. A color so deep and dark, many people fear away from it.

“You were screaming again Mr. Brown.” He moved up from his seat to stand next to me.

“What were you dreaming of?” I looked to the flowers on my left, then to the TV across me. A

man stands hovering over a small child. He looks cross with the small child in front of him, but

in a loving way rather than a ‘Get me a switch’ type of way. Mr. Johnson looked to where I was

focusing on the TV and sighed. He went to the TV and pressed the off button. I looked at him but

did not speak.

It wasn’t that I disliked Mr. Johnson, no sir, I just did not care for his questions.

“Maybe it was your wife you were dreaming of?” He looked at me with cautious eyes as

he said this. I looked up to him and found my voice. “Her scream matched the color of my gun.”

I slowly looked away from him, this was the only sentence he’d be getting out of me today. He

looked puzzled but has learned not to ask questions of what I mean. He nodded his head and

asked if I ever think of that night. Of what I did. I started at the blank TV, watching the night

unfold in its void.

 She needs to learn not to disrupt my work. I grabbed the gun hidden in my underwear

drawer and headed for the dining room. I told her last time, I told her! Did she listen, no no, she

never listens. It’s okay! I’ll teach her, I’ll teach her to never forget, and she’ll learn this time. Oh

boy will she ever! I tugged my chair out from that rug (that damn rug!) and shot once. Mistake

number one Lizzy! I told you I didn’t want this rug and you said yes, oh you said yes all right.

That’s okay! Lesson number one, when I say no, YOU LISTEN. Elizabeth let out a horrifying

scream, a scream so loud you could hear our wine glasses crack. It’s sudden, as was my fire, and

all she could do was hold the side of her stomach and cry out as the scarlet red blood came

oozing out.

That sweater, she wore that sweater out again today. All those men saw her, wanted her,

imagined her, as she walked by, and she let them. She let them because that’s what she wanted.

That’s what she and her monster of a mother wanted! A second bullet flies to her shoulder. She

screamed once again, louder this time! Was that even possible!? She looks at me and screams

“WHY? OH GOD WHY WILLY, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?” the agony in her

voice makes me smile. She’s learning her lesson all right. She’s never going to slip up again,

never going to wear that sweater again, she’s going to get rid of that rug and keep it that way,

maybe never accept anything from her mother again. What a dream that would be, oh yes, what

a dream. I raised the gun and shot one last time to the side of her head. Her head drapes back

against the chair and only small pieces of her hair are left, glued to her face by the blood. She

will never disturb me while I’m working again. No, she will not. Never again. I pick up my knife

and cut into the delicious meal she has made me. A meaty, bloody steak, ripe as can be green

beans, and a mountain of cloud like mashed potatoes. “Wow honey, you’ve certainly outdone
yourself” I say, a mouthful of steak moved to the side of my check. I laugh loudly to myself.

Loudly and manically as the hair from her shoulders fall farther down the back of the chair.

Mr. Johnson snaps his fingers in my face to break me out of my trance. I look at him and

smile. He asks one more time what I dreamed about, but like last time I just look at him. He

sighs, indicating he’s finally given up, and leaves. I look back to the TV, which is now just a

black screen and no longer a look into my past. It stays that way until I drift off until a beautiful

slumber, painted in deep, red, walls.