Flash Fiction Entry for 06/04

    Maria fidgeted excitedly, staring across the dinner table at Ron, engrossed in his newspaper. Tonight was the night! Anticipating this moment for years, Maria recalled the events leading up to this evening:
    How she had lost her hearing ten years ago to a rare virus yet managed to hide her deafness from Ron for the five years they were together. She thought about how she hated the fact that she had misled him about her disability. She remembered back to when she was about 10, how she had unmercifully teased a deaf boy. Maria feared that if Ron was aware of her disability he might do the same.
    Maria concealed her deafness by feigning illiteracy and mastering lip-reading, fooling coworkers and Ron. Concealing from Ron the money she had been saving for the corrective surgery, she made secret pre-surgical visits to a local ENT doctor. Last night in bed ,with the temporarily deafening medicated cotton in her ears for the last time, so happy she found herself laughing out loud. Tonight, after coffee, she would reveal her secret, and how she could now finally hear him perfectly!
    As she took her final sip of coffee, she began to speak, only to find the words forever frozen in her larynx, a sickening pain started in her stomach followed by numbing paralysis.

    Ron spoke, tears streaming down his cheeks.

    "Honey, I know about the affair with that doctor. But last night when I asked you about it in bed and you just laughed, I cried. All these years I tried to talk to you in bed, nothing! You never listen to me! But still, I'll always love you."

    As Maria slumped back towards the harsh coldness of death, she listened to Ron's final words. She heard them perfectly!

Words: 297