He yawned as sleep washed over her. Sitting next to his wife on the couch, his dirty-sock-clad feet were propped on the coffee table amidst a jungle of dinner's dirty dishes and a half-eaten bowl of popcorn. On TV, The Carpet King of America blared:
"This weekend only, half-off all tile and laminate flooring! This weekend only! If you can find a better deal on tile or laminate flooring, then I'm not the Carpet King!"
Heh, carpet. Buddy, I should be The Carpet King if you know what I mean.
It was lost on him that neither tile or laminate is carpet. He grinned and sipped his beer. Turning from the screen, he noticed his wife's neck craning backward on the couch cushions. Her jaw slacking toward her chest. His grin disappeared, his eyes narrowed, and he selected a particularly wide piece of popcorn from the bowl. With the intention of cutting off her airway, he hovered the kernel just above the expanse. Her throat contracted with each breath, her uvula flickering all the while. He instead tossed it back into the bowl.
Don't wake her up. Just enjoy it while you can.
Leaving the mess on the coffee table and allowing the commercial break to drone on, he withdrew his feet with care and snuck across the living room. His eyes adjusted to the lack of television glare while his ears detected snoring rising from the sofa behind him. He shook his head in disgust.
After climbing the dark stairwell to the second floor, he entered the bathroom and stood over the toilet. A freshly deceased cockroach laid legs-up in the corner next to the commode.
I'll let her get it.
He jaundiced the toilet water and abstained from flushing in order to keep the rest of the house asleep. His toddler son was cribbed in the adjacent room, and waking him up would also spoil the night. With the toilet seat left up, he bypassed hand soap and his toothbrush, crossed the hallway, and sunk into bed. His feet left the soft bedroom floor and The Carpet King of America crossed his mind once again. His theoretical reign crossed it next. A laptop and headphones were selected from his nightstand, a bottle of lotion from his wife's. He removed one of his socks. Three minutes and one deleted search history later, with his legs comfortably sprawled across the width of the mattress, he too began to snore.
