Ragnarök

Nineteen: The Flood

Poor poor Edgar.

Mildred watches him from the doorway, lying inert under his afghan with one foot dangling off the couch. Wouldn't he rather be in his nice comfy bed? She switches off the TV playing for no audience. She doesn't have the heart to wake him and say they're out of groceries, or that she can't find the car keys. The man notoriously overworks himself. This sort of crash was bound to happen sooner or later. But just try telling him that before it's too late.

In most respects, Edgar is a shrewd man who learns from his mistakes, but his father instilled in him a costly work ethic, one that leaves little room for self-nurture beyond a brandy or two in the evenings. She doesn't even have the ingredients to make him one of those. How could she have allowed the cupboards to become so bare? There's barely any produce in the refrigerator, only a few questionable-smelling Chinese takeout containers, a bottle of clotted mustard, some Worcestershire sauce, and two overripe pears tucked away in one of the plastic drawers. Curious. They don't even like Chinese food.

But one thing that's always well stocked is her spice cabinet, and Mildred prides herself on nothing if not being resourceful. She bundles a scarf around her head, takes a meat cleaver from the magnetic knife rack, sharpens the contour of its blade for good measure, and heads out back by the chicken coop.

Mason awakes drenched in a clammy sweat, his neck sore from being bent at an unnatural angle. Alarmed by the absence of sunlight, he figures he must've passed out cold for hours on end, and yet he doesn't feel rested. On the contrary, he could sleep longer still, through the night and well into the remaining week. The smell of marbled fat, roasted flesh, herbal juices sweating from cooked muscle fiber—odors that normally arouse his appetite—turn his stomach now, and he buries his face in the pillow until his nausea subsides.

"Edgar?" He hears the widow over his shoulder. "Are you awake? Are you hungry? We're in desperate need of groceries, so I cooked up Ophelia for supper. I hope you don't mind."

The next morning, as they sit listlessly over tea, the widow reminds him again of the grocery shortage. Without saying a word, Mason rises and stalks out of the room, leaving her to wonder if she's upset him. He returns, throwing onto the tabletop the set of keys she was unable to find yesterday, the one wearing the brown leather fob shaped like a Gaelic cross.

"You go," he says. It looks as though he might say more, but gives up.

The keys sit there between them. If she were to swipe them up immediately, then who knows, he might watch her walk out the door, knowing full well what a reckless gamble he's wagering. Instead, he has occasion to study her reaction. It phases from confusion, to recognition, to alarm, to finally—and this is what sets his alarm bells going—overabundant glee. Both their hands lunge for the fob at the same time. Even in his weakened state, his reflexes are faster.

"Never mind," he reneges. "I'll go."

The widow slumps back in her chair. Back into complacency. Whatever mutinous fantasy entered her mind leaves through the same revolving door.

He wonders about this on his way to the store. An infuriated nerve is still alive in her cortex, twitching out a frantic Morse code. Occasionally its signal breaks through, not at a prominent shriek, but like when snippets uttered by a faraway DJ are spliced into radio static—the white noise whose very properties lull the mind to sleep. It harks back to the time she called him a "wicked boy" following Latin mass. For as long as he could fathom it, Mason has never doubted he is wicked, that he is evil, undeserving of basic creature comforts and thus compelled to take them by dishonorable means. Recent events only bolster this narrative.