Carrots, by Abe Kurp

Below, a short-short story I wrote yesterday, polished today. Carrots, by Abe Kurp, is A tale of lost love and the consequences, with copious (unintentional) Shakespeare references. Carrots are also little orange vegetables that help you poop and see in the dark.

It was six months ago when he began this deadly, silly folly. She, the wife, had played the fool and pretended not to know; she knew, in reality, five minutes after his first orgasm that wasn't hers. She cried, stopped, then cried anew. But the hours passed, with no manly shadow at the door --Nothing --No one, at which to yell, scream, throw.

The hours passed and she fell in love again. She waited for her sweet prince, flights of angels --or hordes of little goblins-- no longer in her mind. He came home, returned to the house at last, oblivious to all the torment, his mind on but two things: a) sex, b) affair. He had done it on an impulse, to satisfy a craving long left unfulfilled. Now Impulse was a magical word; now, he longed for more.

Luckily, he was a good actor (they didn't hand out the role of Othello to anyone). Luckily, she seemed simply unaware: she a sheep, the affair a part of the wide world beyond her little pasture. Even if she knew, or contrived sketchy weavings of his distant rumblings, she never said a word.

She was quiet like a sheep, he thought, though he had never been near the countryside. His liaisons continued without cause or reason for abatement. When interest faded on his first --really, truly his second-- he was not miffed; there were always more to come.

His lust for others defied all attempts at reconciliation. Her make-up dinners and forgiveness stews were eaten with indifference at best, and heartiness at worst --fuel for the next round of dicking around. The hours they spent together --in wind-swept meadows, dim-lit bars: romantic spots he used to love-- were now only a reprieve from constant thrusting.

She was chopping carrots in the kitchen when he returned. He was drunk: she could hear his stumbling and slurring in the hall. He was not alone: there was a pair of slurs and stumbles, distinctly heard. Her longtime fears were rectified: the other was a woman; he had brought a woman to the house.

The giggles and slurs came closer, the chops of the knife against the cutting board grew closer and closer to their brethren.

The door flew open and banged against the wall. A red-faced, sorrowful man stood there, clinging to the arm of a blond-haired young one, all smiles till she saw the kitchen's occupant. The bright lights of the kitchen flashed against the dark blue sequins on her dress. Both faces lost their color.

With tiny, discolored sentences he tried to make his stand, to defend his improprieties. Sixteen years of love's labor would be lost in only a few nights of breezy infatuation. Was it worth it, now, to fling it all away?

She heard but did not listen, nor did she speak. Even he seemed to know the time of forgiveness had already passed. To Abyss she had lost him, to Abyss he now would go: it was time to cut this matter short.