Tipping the Scales

Tipping the Scales, Chapter 32

Where else could she go? Pain-wracked and panicky, she willed herself to think. There had to be an alternative.

The garage?

Yes, that would work... It was nearly as large as the living room and, since they had taken both cars to the airport, currently empty. It did have windows, three of them, but these were tiny squares set so high on the wall that Odelia had never been able to wash them without getting on a step ladder, and it was nearly impossible to see through to the garage floor even from that vantage point. Yes... She would be safe in the garage. At least until the family got back and raised the door to park their cars.

But there was no point worrying about that.

The only alternatives available were the garage and eventual discovery, or the living room and nearly immediate discovery, so the garage it would have to be.

She oozed forward onto the crunchy carpet, shouldering a chair aside to clear her path. This did not reveal a clean spot. If anything, the pile was even crunchier where the chair had been. She shuddered and sped up, stretching and elongating her body as much as possible, hoping to slither through without having to move much more furniture.

The pains had acquired a slow and jarring rhythm. Each one seemed to strike a fraction of a moment sooner than anticipated, and was a hair more ferocious in its intensity. They drove her forward like the lashings of a whip.

Throat sore from breathing through her mouth to avoid discovering what the carpet smelled like, neck aching from holding her head as far off it as possible, and the rest of her, save for the tender flesh of her breasts, which were still shielded by her toga turned bare-midriff blouse, tingling and burning from scraping across the sandpapery expanse, Odelia nearly wished she'd stayed in her bedroom after all. The kitchen felt like it was miles rather than feet away.

What will the kitchen floor be like if the living room is—

"Shut your filthy mouth." Odelia ordered her little inner voice.

The drips and crumbs will have compacted into a second layer of flooring—you do know that, right? It'll be—

"I just won't look at it. I'll keep breathing through my mouth and I'll shut my eyes, too, and then I'll never have to know," Odelia announced. "I don't want to think about it, and you can't make me."

Talking to yourself is a sign of mental illness, you know.

This was quite true of course, but Odelia found that, for the moment anyway, she did not particularly care. "It'll be easy," she said, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'll start counting the pains, and that'll focus my—ow... Oh Christ... One."

One one one one, oh God let it stop, one one...

Her shoulders slid.

One moment the skin of her shoulders was scratching across carpet bristles, and the next, sliding. Behind them, the rest of her body continued to undulate resolutely onward.

It could be worse. It could be sticky. You could be glued fast to the tile like you were in a roach motel.

"Counting, counting, you're supposed to be counting," she said.

One one one one, still one, only one, picture the room, aim at the back door, one one-ow. Ooh, ow, two two two two two keep your eyes shut, aim, picture the room the way it was when it was clean, two two two...

Kitchen table to the left, counters, sinks and appliances to the right, back door straight ahead, and every speck of it sparkling clean, at least in her mind's eye. In her mind's eye, the slick goop she was sliding through was totally invisible, not caking her toga or collecting in the folds of her flesh, absolutely not three three three three there at all. In her minds eye, light glinted off the kitchen table's gleaming chrome legs, and the tile was spotless black and white squares, bearing nary a crumb nor a stain on it anywhere.