Tearing hearts

Housewife Radio

Stitch sew cut pull

My routine starting at 7 am as the radio begins the play. My long skirt flies around me as I smile doing everything to get ready for my husband to come home. Before I begin I finish the coffee he made this morning, today it had a powder taste to it. I hum softly to the lovely music that pours out of the radio's speakers and drowns me into a trance.

Healthy yellow and white roses grow in my garden and sit in water filled vases on the counter. A laugh escapes my smile as thread gets tangled in my hands, my agitation washed away by his voice that talks over the waves of music. The thread goes into the small opening on the end of the needle with ease as I have done this many times.

Colors swim around me, painting the white cloths I stitch together. My hair in a beautiful bun to the back of my head leaving my blue glowing eyes clear to see the patterns marked with a black marker. Steam blows everywhere heating my skin up from the iron when I lift it up giving the air a burning smell. My dear Henry's shirt had a hole burned into the sleeve for I had left the iron on it too long. I grab a patch and thread to stitch it up, we don't want him coming home to a burned shirt now do we.

A button was missing from another shirt, so I slip buttons on to the needle as my head turns away watching the birds chirping. They were chirping, to loudly... I can't hear the radio... The colors fade away, the chirps digging deep into my head. Grabbing a needle I lunge at the birds driving the needle deep into their throats, now the happy colors come back.

Going back to the sewing machine the thread I was putting buttons was again tangled in the shirt, oh no. The stress from the tangles were slowly eating at my heart as reality tries to catch up to me. The time was ticking away by the hour, I don't have time to stand around. Stands of hair escape my bun turning my hair slowly into a mess.

My head was high off the colors spilling from the radio, forming words he spoke to me. My eyes dripped of liquid sound waves, my hands stitching with the sewing machine humming over the radio. No the colors fade away again leaving only black and white to torture me, to tower over me watching my every mistake. Cramps stab my wrists and fingers making me drop thimbles everywhere and the needles make my skin bleed.

Holding my wrists my heals hit the tile floor from running to the bathroom sink to patch myself up. The shadows follow me not letting me escape, filling my sanity with multicolored fear switching fast.  His faces taunt me from the pictures, all scratched black with his eyes only showing. Dead flowers cover the floors, showing they have been over watered by blinded hands.

The mirror reflects his rotting face over mine, insects slipping from his empty eyes and mouth falling onto me. They craw in my hair and smear at my makeup  that took me hours to perfect for my lover. Falling to my side I crawl away from the disgusting bathroom filled with death and to the kitchen where the sewing machine was stitching out of control. Blood covered feathers were printed on the cloths until the machine cuts off from a power serge. Finally the radio plays again screaming violently in my ears filling my eyes with it's color blinding me with pain.

"I'm dead Nancy."

The colors swim around me as I try to crawl away, his voice now echoing like if he was in a long tunnel. 'I'ts my fault, if I wasn't out with my friends.... I could have saved him...'

"Come with me my dear so we can live together in heaven."

A bright light lays on the lonely chair in the middle of the living room, it's wood a dark shade of dead brown. His hand goes down to help me up, a lovely smile stitched onto his face with red thread. Slowly he pulls me up with ease and leads me to the chair for me to step up on. Thick rope slips over my head and hangs loosely around my neck,"You look so beautiful."

Glowing like an angel Henry stands in front of me, his arms out stretched waiting for me. Colorful tears pour from my eyes as I step off the dead chair, the last sound I hear is a snap_________________________________