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Farewell to Seafaring
Down in the Dirt, v153
(the January 2018 Issue)




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Jan.-Apr. 2018
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Bad Romance

Richard Bullard II

    “Why would you do this to me?” Carol said as her makeup failed her; black lines of cheap mascara slowly flowed down her cheeks. Crossing her arms, she disregarded her morning coffee, its black contents chilled.
    William sat across from her with his legs crossed and a cigarette smoke lingered throughout the veranda. He puffed on that cancer stick just long enough to let a drag out and allowed the cloud to cover himself.
    “You know this could never happen?” William said.
    “Happen...what did happen?” Carol said with tears cascading from her hazel eyes, “You’re an idiot, you realize that?”
    He laughed a deep bellow that started at the bottom of his belly and rolled up his throat. It caused Carol to shrink back, her coffee cascading to the ground.
    “You promised me...marriage.” Carol said.
    “That was not what I said.” William said.
    “Then what was this?” Carol said.
    “I was in a need and you fulfilled that,” William said his tone growing louder.
    “So...the hunt and the kill?” Carol said her sadness damping her frown even more, “This was just a fling?”
    “You must be serious with me,” William said taking another long drag from his cancer, his white suit clashing with the bright sunlight. Clouds were gathering in the distance to the west and a slight breeze gave the telling a of a storm coming.
    “I was.” Carol said.
    “This isn’t some sappy romance novels,” William said spitting on the ground, the humidity outside of the Laquinta Dominaro Hotel causing small beads of sweat to appear upon his forehead, “That shit you keep writing and thinking it’s going to get you somewhere in life...that’s a the real tragedy here.”
    She stood up and stormed through a sliding-glass door; her movements echoed the thunder that was heard in the distance. During the month of May, Craven Texas’s weather could be a bit unpredictable at times; a storm began to roll in from the southwest. Carol began wind-milling herself around the well-furnished room. The two beds sat like coffins dressed in a stripped green comforter. Only one was disheveled and its pale white mattress called to her, she stared at it briefly and continued her tirade through the hotel room. As she entered the bathroom a slight sour smell addressed her nostrils and she wrinkled her nose. She faced the mirror, she saw her reflection a bleary-eyed woman just past her twenty mark; her blonde hair was a mess, she hadn’t wanted to do anything with it. Suddenly she noticed William was behind her in the mirror his arms attempting to encase her.
    “Listen here babe,” William said as one of his strong arms was around her waist and the other lingered over her chest, “I liked you but you could never believe that we were in love?”
    She looked down one of her hands grasping his, her sadness had changed to a hunger as the lines of her face turned narrower; her grimace was gone and a slight sly smile she wore upon her visage. Her right hand, which wished desperately for a ring that had never come, grabbed a pair of scissors. Sharp and metallic, they glistened in that pale-yellow light of the hotel bathroom.
    “Do me a favor,” She said pressing herself against him, her summer dress wrinkling under the sexual tension, “Die quietly.”
    With quick succession, she stabbed William across the throat, the metallic instrument was gruesome now. Blood, a deep red began to flow from his jugular as he fell to the cold white and black tiled floor. He gasped and sputtered as she stepped back to admire her work, Carol was happy.
    She waited until the man died, she watched every bit of his life fall from his eyes. That was when she finally left and walked back over to her bedside table and jotted down an idea for a new romance story. Her lacy hand writing skittering across the page, while William’s blood stained the white page.
    The hotel phone made her jump, it’s shrill ring came loud and sudden like the thunder now crashing overhead.
    “Hello?” Carol said.
    “Yes is this Ms. Carol Wallace?” A man’s voice said on the other end.
    “Yes it is,” Carol said looking down at her manuscript that she had been working on since last night: Bad Romance: a murder of love and passion. She had forgotten to eat or even meet with her best friend at the café to discuss the actual work.
    “Just letting you know that the down stairs laundry services are working now,” the man’s voice said.
    “Thank you, I will be down shortly.” Carol said hanging up the receiver.
    She sighed and walked into the bathroom, in the darkness she saw the scene again; her character attacking a beloved lover...his blood pooling on the floor; her imagination sometimes getting the best of her. She slid those same scissors down her own wrist just to see what that would look like.



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