Flashes

The slashing sounds outside have abated. It is too soon after dusk for anyone to have been out working, but then again, this was Bob. The more Maria got to know him, the less certain she was that she understood him. They lived in the strange limbo between love and indifference, with neither side ever consuming them for long enough to claim them completely.

There is a man hunched over some papers, pen in hand, eyes on Maria. He is waiting. She doesn’t remember what he has asked but the question lingers impatiently on his face. She closes her eyes to make sense of the heaviness in her chest. That doesn’t help. It is impossible to know right there and then why everything smells like sweat…dirt…stagnation…like time hesitantly dragging itself through its motions.

The man across from her sits back in an armchair that has clothes dangling from it. They are her clothes, of that she is sure. She thought she had washed the red satin blouse but she must have forgotten to because clean clothes never ever wound up on that armchair.

“Sorry, what did you say?” She asks, each word scratching its way up through what feels like it will be a horrible sore throat.

The man makes a note on a pink notepad before he looks back at her.

“What is the last thing you remember?” His eyebrows move, two bushy caterpillars drawn closer in a near snuggle.

As she sighs, voices drift into the room from just outside her door. She turns towards the door but hears nothing more. They are not alone. The man’s eyes are focused on her face. He is trying to read her. Bob is outside.

“Who are you?” She inquires, a quiver of panic in her voice now, her hand absently rubbing her throat.

“I’m a detective. I am here because some people were concerned about you. I am here to find out why.” He speaks carefully, weighing the weight of each word before he releases it into the space between them.

“So why don’t you ask the people who are concerned? I feel…fine” Maria’s last sentence is a hybrid statement and question.

The man scribbles something quick on the same sheet of paper. He is too far off for her to read what he was committed to writing.

“Why are we in my bedroom?” Maria asks as she scans the room for her green water bottle.

“We need to stay in here until the police are done with their job.”

“The police?”

“Yes Madam. I’m not sure how you thought that would end but bringing a lover home was surely not one of the smartest ideas you have had.”

Like the rumble of thunder that reluctantly follows an eager flash of lightning, the events of the evening before reintroduce themselves to Maria.

A Valentines date. Dinner. Romance. Some form of strangulation. Bob appearing from out of nowhere. And then the slashing sounds outside.

“Detective, I think my husband saved my life…”