"Belly Up" by Winona Morris

Belly Up

by Winona Morris

 

It was just after dusk when the woman realized the goldfish had died. 

Both of them lay at the bottom of their tank in the sickly green light, covered with a white film of skuzz.  It looked fluffy and she wondered if they would be soft if she touched them.

“Well that’s the fucking cherry on a shit sundae,” she said to herself, then tilting her head back she said louder, “You can’t even keep the goddamn goldfish alive, what are you even doing?”

Silence came from all around her as she reached over and clicked off the aquarium’s light.

Upstairs the floorboards creaked.  Outside a quiet murmur of voices floated across the yard from the sidewalk.

“You drive me to this, you know,” she said, stomping up the stairs. “You push and push and push and now you let the goldfish die? I LOVED those fish.  Do you even understand the word love?”

Upstairs she paused in her bedroom, long enough to change into her nightgown.  It was an old fashioned long white nightshirt. She joked that one day she was going to get a nightcap to go with it. That would be hilarious.

The murmur of voices was a little louder now and she peeked out of her bedroom window, careful not to let the curtain twitch.

There were four of them out there tonight.  The first time it had just been two. Every night they brought another friend.  Tonight one looked like a girl.  The girl was shoving the smaller of the boys towards the house, and he was fighting it.

A creak came from the attic. Maybe the house settling.  Maybe something else.

She took a candelabra, as old fashioned as her nightgown, and a book of matches to the pull down ladder that led up the trap door to the attic.

“You have the power to stop this, you know,” she called up. “We could get out of this loop so easily, but you have to back down first. I’m not going to!”

Silence from upstairs.  Yelling from the sidewalk.  

At the top of the stairs she paused and lit one of the five taper candles with a match, then used it to light the other four. Setting the candelabra on the table near the top of the steps, she walked slowly towards the tableau directly in front of the window.

Her shadow danced ahead of her, growing huge as it covered first the chair, then the noose hanging ready right above it. As her shadow covered the window, the bickering outside stopped.

She passed the chair for the moment, stopping at the window, brushing the curtain aside. All four faces were pointed her way, all four mouths open.  She wanted to wave at them, a little finger wiggle and they’d have a story to tell for life. She didn’t wave, but let the curtain drop back into place before climbing up on the chair, setting the noose around her neck, and pulling the knot as tight as she could.

“I’m giving you one more chance to do the right thing!” She said.

Silence.

“I really loved those fucking fish,” were her last words before kicking the chair over.

Outside on the sidewalk three of the children screamed and ran.  The girl stayed, watching, as the shadow in the window spasmed once, twice, then was still other than a slight sway back and forth.  Then she also ran.

Morning came, as morning always did.  Still hanging by her neck from the ceiling rafter, the woman groaned past the swollen tongue protruding between her purple lips.  Nobody could have understood the string of profanity she was actually spewing, as she dug into the pocket of her nightshirt and found the knife she had stowed there alongside the book of matches. 

She managed not to cut herself this time as she slipped the knife between her neck and the rope.  The rope gave quicker than she expected and she fell with a hard thump to the floor.

The wood under her seemed to sigh, every joint and crack in the building settling softly at once.  Angry, she slapped her hand against the floor repeatedly until the noise stopped.

“You’re happy with yourself, aren’t you?” she whispered.  

The woman’s throat ached something horrible, like it always did the morning after. It would stop by mid morning, she knew, but that didn’t make it any better now.

She rolled onto her back, letting a shaft of sunlight fall over her face.  Outside the birds were singing. She wondered if the kids from last night had told their parents they had seen the woman in white hang herself. She wondered if their parents would believe them?

“Why won’t you let me die?” she asked.

The floor beneath her creaked once, then fell silent.

Slowly, she pulled herself to her feet.  She gathered cut rope, set the toppled chair straight and took the candelabra with its burned down stubs into her hands.  

“Those damn fish better be alive again when I get down there,” she yelled, before descending the stairs to start her day.