Sometimes They Come Back on Ya

Sometimes They Come Back on Ya
(464 words)

What makes a woman go crazy?  Is it when she realizes that this is all there is?  That this pitiful thing she calls a life is all that there will ever be?

As I watched the gelatinous mound that called himself a man, from my vantage point at the kitchen sink, I wondered what I would do if I were alone. 

“Stelllaaaa!  Stellllaaaaa!”  he roared from his seat in front of the TV.

I went to the fridge and got him his favorite Egyptian beer, Stella Light.

I’d finished the dishes, put away the leftovers, so I turned out the kitchen light and brought him his beer.  He looked green, like a week old corpse.  His dark eyes flicked over at me as I took my seat in the chair next to him.

The station put on a commercial and the green glow of the football field on the TV changed to yellow.  Now, Tony looked like a saffron-colored jaundice victim.  I relaxed back in my seat and pretended to watch.

Before half-time, he started rubbing his belly and making whimpery noises.  I watched him out of the corner of my eye.  The jowls of his face shook as he shifted in his seat uncomfortably.  His belt was already undone, but now he undid the buttons of his shirt and let the expanse of his stomach roll into the open.

The bile-green light reflected from the TV made him look like a cross between a jade Buddha and the blob.  Or was the blob pink?  Nope, I think it was green. 

The blob rocked forward in his chair suddenly, growling like nails were in his stomach.  “Aaarrgh!” he groaned.  His face took on a sour expression.  Of course, it always had a sour expression, but this was different.  This was an I’m gonna explode tortured grimace.

I knew I should ask him if he was alright, but I couldn’t seem to make my mouth work.  So I sat in silence, hands gripping each other bloodless in my lap, and waited.

And waited. 

I watched him rub his stomach as if it were that genie lamp in “Aladin.”  The harder he rubbed, the more I started to expect something to jump out of him.  Maybe like in that scary “Alien” movie, something would rip its way free, all oozing and disgusting.  We watched a lot of TV.

He rocked sideways in his chair, and leaned over the armrest and then a fart the size of Holland thundered out from the depths of the upholstery.

“Ahhhh,” he exhaled in relief.  Then he said, without taking his eyes from the TV screen, “It’s those beans.  Sometimes they come back on ya.  Repeaters.”

I sighed silently in my chair. 

Dammit!  I’m gonna have to buy some more rat poison.






Author’s Note: This was written on 10/8 for Acme’s Comedy Scream Halloween - Freestyle Writing Challenge contest.  The prompt was: Sometimes they come back.