She sat perched on her pretty pink chintz sofa, in her pretty pink dress and pearls, waiting for her husband to come home. She had spent all day getting herself ready for his return, painstakingly painting her lips pretty pink and coiffing her hair into perfect curls. Her pretty pink kitten heels were tucked underneath her and her pretty pink skirt was carefully spread over the couch in a ladylike manner as she prepared his daily tumbler of scotch. She observed her surroundings with sentimentality, remembering when she and Jack had first bought the house together.
It had been a bit of a fixer-upper, the house's ugly robin's egg blue exterior made her cringe. But Jack— handsome, sweet, Jack, fresh out of school at Princeton— had told her that the house was hers. Whatever sort of change she wanted, he would spare no expense to make it happen.
That summer she had sat under the baby blue sky in a yellow lawn chair, the lush green lawn contrasting with her pretty pink pedal pushers and pretty pink neck scarf. She sipped pretty pink lemonade and watched her love coat the house in pretty pink, his blinding white smile lighting up the yard. Soon, they stood in the driveway in each others' arms, looking proudly at their pretty pink flower boxes, pretty pink mailbox, pretty pink flowers in the garden, and pretty pink door with a shiny gold knocker. Young and in love, he had scooped her up and carried her over the threshold like they were newlyweds again.
She smile fondly at the memory as she surveyed the living room she currently sat in. Pretty pink floral wallpaper hid the old wood paneling that had once been there. Two armchairs in a pretty light pink offset the pretty pink chintz sofa where she sat. The pretty pink fireplace was a resting place for pretty pink picture frames filled with pretty pink memories of herself and Jack.
The pretty pink door opened, and Jack trudged in, wearing his usual finely creased slacks and sports coat, the polished brass buttons specially ordered from Italy. The animated boy from her summer memories had been replaced with a stiff businessman long ago, his pearlescent smile having permanently disappeared.
She demurely stood up to deliver him his drink, and with her eyes zeroing in on his lack of tie. She could've sworn that he left wearing the pretty pink tie she laid out for him his morning. Her perfect eyebrows drew inwards as she laid her fingers on his lapel.
"Darling, where's your tie? It was silk! Oh, it'll be a shame to replace such a pretty pink color,"
In mind's eye Jack remembered where his tie was. A ribbon of pretty pink around the neck of his assistant from when he had fucked her over his desk that afternoon. She had taken his tie with her as a souvenir when they had finished.
"The goddamn bitch forgot to give it back," he thought.
"Jack? Honey? Where's your tie? That was the last one at Gimbels! Oh, where can I find another one like that during this season? You know that shade is gone until next summer,"
She continued to pester, and pester, her high pitched voice causing a sharp pain in the back of his head. Jack couldn't take it anymore, his brain felt like it was undergoing a lobotomy. He shoved her off him, making her tumble to the floor, losing one of her pretty pink kitten heels.
"God, shut up about that stupid fucking pink tie!" Jack screamed, hurling the tumbler of scotch at the wall.
She watched as the glass shattered, raining diamonds onto the pretty pink chenille carpet. As the alcohol soaked into her pretty pink floral wallpaper— turning it an ugly, thin shade of brown— she felt a twitch in her eye. Her pretty pink. The dirty patch of brown slowly spread down the wall and pooled on the carpet, tainting the pretty pink color with the ugliness that her husband had created.
Crawling over to the wall with just one shoe, she sat back on her haunches to clean up the glass, tears welling up in her eyes. Jack had collapsed on the sofa and made himself another drink. As she carefully put the glass on a tray to be thrown out later, she nicked her finger on a particularly large shard. She picked it up, and examined it, before a fragment of an idea formed in her head.
She stood with the shard of glass in her hand, blood slowly dripping down her fingers as the shard cut deeper, and limped over to the sofa. She loomed over Jack, raising the shard over her head. With a last look at where his tie should have been, and a sniffle, she plunged the shard directly into the nape of his neck. Blood spewed over the back of the chintz sofa and leaking into the cushions, and subsequently splashing onto her dress.
She reached up and rubbed her hands up her face, mixing the remnants of her makeup with his blood. She then carded her hands through her hair, streaking threads of red into her golden locks. After the first stab, she moved around the sofa to his front and stabbed him again in the stomach, sending blood onto the coffee table and into his tumbler of scotch.
She pulled the shard out of his stomach, and went to one of the pretty light pink armchairs, perching herself on the edge and carefully arranging her skirt as a true lady should. She smoothed out the wrinkles in her pretty pink dress— now dyed with splatters of red— and she waited.
__________
When the police came hours later after receiving a phone call about a domestic dispute, they found a horrifying scene. In the time between the murder and their arrival, she had painted his blood on everything pink. After about 20 minutes of waiting she had decided that she liked red much more than pretty pink. The pretty pink walls, pretty pink couch, pretty pink armchairs, pretty pink fireplace— everything had been coated with Jack's special shade of red.
They soon carried her out in handcuffs, much to the surprise of the block. Their neighbors snickered behind manicured hands. Of course it was the most perfect person on the block who snapped.
Gently rocking back and forth in the back of the squad car, the police heard her nearly incoherently mumbling something to herself.
"Prettyredprettyredprettyredprettyred,"
