The line of pills stretched out in uneven lines atop the bathroom cabinet. Dozens of bottles and pots were placed acutely along in the exact order they were to be taken, varying in size, shape and colour. They all belonged to Jim Harris, although the precise contents in each container, he did not know. That wasn't his domain. His wife, Marian, had the delight of constantly clock-watching, deciphering when the next dose or installment were to be taken, and how many she was to give him. She loathed this job, she loathed this life, although she was stuck. In the same boring, monotonous routine day after day after day...
At 79 years of age, Jim had become almost totally bed ridden in the recent months. He was useless, and Marian's job was to see to his each and every need, which were large and often. She, being just 62, still had life in her, although with each waking moment she spent with Jim, another morsel of energy was sucked right out of her. She was utterly sick of it and, at the same as counting down the seconds until Jim's next necessary dosage, she was also secretly counting down the seconds until his final dosage, and what had become a pitiful existence finally came to a close.
She had thought about it before, of course. She had the power, the control, to do whatever she pleased. She could so easily 'accidently' slip a fatal dose into his coffee, or crush one extra into his salad. Hell, she could probably even hand him twenty different pills to take all at once and he'd be ridiculous enough to eat them as if they were Smarties. It would be so easy, although in reality Marian could never really go through with it. She was horribly disappointed in the fact that she was too cowardly to kill her own husband.
She sat, isolated on the cushioned wicker chair that remained a metre or so away from his bed. She couldn't even bring herself to call it their bed anymore - she wasn't his wife anymore, she was his carer and she spent every night tilting on the edge of her side, wanting to get as far away from his as possible. Now she watched him, as he slept for what must've been the twenty fifth hour of the day. He even looked pathetic when he was sleeping, snoring loudly with his mouth agape, sounding like a dying dog. She found her fist spontaneously and gradually clenching as with each elongated breath her resentment for him grew. She snapped herself out of it, and checked the watch on her now tensed arm. It was time for another pill. She dragged herself up, sighing, ready for the same old ritual to commence. She tapped the blanket at the foot of the bed, nudging Jim in the process.
"Time for another tablet, Jim," she said unfeelingly, heading to the bathroom to collect the next series of concoctions.
"Huh?" he mumbled, awakening but still half asleep, as he seemed to be for 90% of the time.
"Tablets," Marian repeated, bringing a fake smile to her face.
"Oh. Oh, Marian," he whimpered, sitting up straight with so much effort it was painful just watching. "My head."
"What about your head?" She sat at the foot of his bed, thrusting her hand towards his chin.
"It hurts."
"Just take your pills, Jim. That'll make it better." She helped him with the glass of water as he limply washed the tablet down his throat.
"No. No, it's worse than usual," he muttered.
"Go back to sleep, eh. You'll feel better after a sleep," she suggested, although he spent nearly every minute sleeping, it wouldn't make much different if he never woke up.
Marian retreated back into the bathroom, without quite knowing why. She felt stifled in that room and couldn't breath; she had to get out.
Jim's head was spinning back in the bedroom. It felt as if two gargantuan hands were taking him from either side and pushing, so hard that his head could squash like a grape at any given moment. His usual helpless weakness, however, didn't last long. From nowhere, he felt a surge of energy, angry energy, not just against Marian, but against the whole world. He had been surplus to requirements for months and it was now taking its toll.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, he had the strength he had been praying for for weeks. He ripped off his duvet covers, seething. He roared as he tipped over the bed he had been trapped in for countless days, as if it was made of paper, sending it careering into the adjacent wall. Marian jumped out of her skin in the bathroom and came dashing in, also moving with a pace she hadn't been enthralled to in months. She was dumbfounded to spot her husband not only out of his bed, but looking so strong, so dominant. He looked livid.
"Jim?" she tried, letting out a faint gasp in disbelief.
But he didn't respond. He didn't say anything. This new found surge of hatred he had was used up on his beloved. He grabbed her by the neck, tossing her to the window, forcing her to bang her head on the sill. She was unconscious, but he was not finished there. Next, he picked her back up, the tenderness they had once shared years ago now completely obliterated. He threw her back to the other side of the room, her whimpers for help not being noted. He continued to do so until she was nearly completely gone from this life, then dragged her into the bathroom. He spotted the pills he had been living on for all this time and swept them off of the cabinet, no longer in need of them. Whatever it was that had caused this change, he had an adrenaline-filled love for it.
He pulled his wife by the back of the hair, forcing her bloody face to look at them in the mirror. Now he had the control, he had the power and there was no going back. He yanked her head back and lurched it back forward into the mirror, smashing it into hundreds of little shards. If this was what seven years bad luck felt like, he wanted to break countless mirrors. He dropped Marian to the floor, and smirked. He looked in the remaining remnents of the mirror and wiped that horrible woman's blood splatters from his forehead. He turned and ran, out of the house, out of the town until he had no recollection of the pitiful woman he had spent most of his life with or their previous pitiful life.
