Bed of Lies (ON HOLD)

VIII

"Ow!" I exclaim, blenching at my flesh being sliced through for the third time since this morning.

Grabbing the knife I'd let go of when the cut startled me, I turn the tap to the left which runs the water hot and rinse the blood both off my finger and the blade. Under the now scalding water, I quickly wash the cutter with dish soap before replacing it on the plastic board. Disinfecting my butchered finger afterwards with the cruel iodine however expectedly takes way longer than the previous process.

What is wrong with me? I slap my cheeks with aching hands afterwards. I can't explain this feeling. Actually in more precise words, I don't want to. This burning ache is on the verge of making me run mad and I don't want to interpret its frightening effects on me.

I'm gradually losing it, and I'm not even sure what 'it' is. At the moment, a great wonder is the actuality that I have not chopped off all my fingers already.

Raising my elbow to my head, I swipe off the sweat that has taken over the previously dry skin on my brow and now threatens to plummet down from its throne of beading drops.

The kitchen is stuffy from the smells of frying foods, crushed spices and other concussions of delicious smells. Yet none of it can cheer me up. Even the Californian sun, that I had come to admire how it gradually and so intensely sweeps all that lies in its path, today only worsens my mood.

It's hot. So hot that I want to cry. Well, that is not the reason I want to cry. I have many reasons to cry but the heat is not one of them. And neither are my injured fingers. After all, I have been cut more than a hundred times before in my cooking history.

But I still want to cry. Till my eyes turn so swollen and puffy that they can barely open themselves up. Till I can scarcely breathe when I wheeze and wheeze out the vexing cries lodged in my throat. Till my head aches like I have been bludgeoned at my skull with the strongest object known to exist on earth. I want to cry that hard. And more.

Sturdy footsteps vibrate on the wooden floorboards and I whip around to see my husband glaring at me with an unimpressed and hard expression on his face. I feel the air surrounding me blaze fierily then plunge into a glacier sphere in a volant lacerating instant. 

"You...you're crying again?" He queries with the same icy edge that has never once left his voice since his coming back home three days ago. I turn my attention down, focusing on his slipper cladded feet until I am suddenly confronted by the late comprehension of his words.

I'm crying?

My right hand searches my cheek and to my dismay, I find it wet with tears. With the speed of a lightning bolt, I rush at the salty streams, trying to dry them off as they gallop down with the fervour of water bursting through a ruined dam. My attempts however fail to stop the deluge as I only end up with actions that make me seem like an animal frantically tearing at the water besieging its face with a clawed hand.

He sighs miserably, his gelid eyes intent on me while still keeping that gaping distance between us. I wish his eyes would stop watching me that way. His gaze hurts too much as I'm reminded of an unabridged edition of the manner in which I had regarded Clara that fateful day. The very day I found out she was dating Tony.

I see how closed off he is just as I had been. I see how wary he seems exactly as I had been. I however search but am unable to find a loathing like mine had carried towards my sister from that day onward. And that gives me hope.

That tiny seed of hope...

"Do you ever stop doing that bullshit?"

...again is dead.