06 - Wed Paint - Element
Juliah took her blue designer blazer and hung it on the brass coat hanger standing near the doorway. She carefully placed her leather briefcase, full of paperwork she dreaded to do, carefully on a chair, slipped off her pumps, and went straight to the kitchen. "Taylor? Carrie? Are you home?" she called as she pulled open the refrigerator door to look for dinner ideas.
The one quick moment of silence said it all. No one was home. Juliah, curious of the empty house, started walking up the stairs.
Her footsteps, soft like she, but quick as a cheetah, guided her up the carpeted steps to the outside of her bedroom.
Juliah placed her carefully manicured hands upon the cold doorknob.
She heard something. Juliah thrust her head quickly to the bathroom door down the hall where she thought she heard that little scratching noise.
There.
It started again. Her breaths quickened as she strode down the hall. She pulled the door open just a bit and held it's position there.
Peering through the opening in the bathroom door were two, little, brown, bulging eyes. Then, the creature continued the scratching again. "Aw, poor thing. Come on Feebee I'm taking outside.
Another sound back down the hall started taunting her. Juliah dropped the dog absently and decided to go back to the other end.
Noise. It came from Carrie's room.
She opened her daughter's bedroom revealing the powder pink fluffy dwelling of a five-year-old princess wannabe. "Carrie?" she whispered as she walked towards the bed. There, laying sweatily upon it, was no other than Sleeping Beauty. "Carrie hon? Are you okay?"
"Hmm...mom?" the girl's red eyes looked sadly at her mom. Her voice was nothing more than a grumble.
"Yes darling?"
"I don't feel too..." she fell back into her slumber. Juliah patted Carrie's head, tucked some hair behind her ears, and got up.
She looked in the vanity. Boy was she a mess. Her French twist that started as a neat, long hairdo in the morning, now lay slightly hanging off to the side. Her foundation was cracking; everything seemed to be wrongtoday.
The phone started ringing.
"Hello?" Juliah asked picking up the phone in her bedroom.
"Hi," said a woman's voice on the other line. She sounded to Juliah like a total bitch; perky, spoiled, young.
"Yes?" Juliah asked in an annoyed tone.
"Um, I'm looking for Taylor."
"Sorry, but he's not home right now. May I take a message?" She tried sweetening her voice but it didn't work.
"Yeah. Tell him I can't make it tonight."
That took Juliah away. "An affair?!" her mind screamed. "Is that it?! What can't the bastard do a better job of keeping it secret?"
"Okay, sure I will. May I know who's speaking?" Juliah clutched her pillow imagining the girl's face on it.
"Funny, I was about to ask the same thing." Her laugh was girlish. "I'm Olivia. And you are?"
"Olivia huh? What a bitch of a name." Juliah hung up.
She went downstairs and tried to cook dinner. First, she burned the oil in the pan. Then, the pasta overflowed and so started the domino affect of disaster.
The sauce was too sour, she dropped the noodles on the floor, the breadsticks weren't baking; at the end on the two hours she spent in the kitchen all that was to be dinner lay in the trash can.
"Hey, wait a minute. What's Carrie doing home alone?" she asked herself outloud. "Taylor had to be here earlier. Where is he?"
Finally, lights shone through the living room window. The room had been darkened and the TV's glare dimly lit the room.
Juliah sat on the sofa, relieved by his presence. She had gave Carrie medicine, took a shower, and was now waiting for the last thing she had to do; Taylor.
She let the slick metal glide along her fingers over and over again.
"Hey honey," greeted Taylor as he walked through the front door. Juliah ignored him and walked silently to the kitchen.
"Honey? What's wrong?" he followed behind her into the brightly illuminated kitchen.
"Oh nothing." Juliah weakly smiled.
"Bad day at work?" he inquired.
"You can say that."
Taylor approached her and put his arms wrong her. He was about to give his sweet wife a kiss when --
"FUCK!" He screamed so loud the neighbors had to hear.
"Asshole!" Juliah plunged it through his back again. "Mother-fucking asshole!" And again. She repeated the procedure; stabbing him everytime some kind of comment went into her head. By the end she must've stabbed him at least 15 times.
"Mommy?" asked a drowsy girl standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Mommy? Daddy!" she cried running over to her lifeless father who lay in a pool of blood on the floor.
"Yes hon?" Juliah asked. She looked up from her position on the kitchen table keeping her chin cupped in her bloodstained hands.
"Mommy? Oh, I get it. It's Halloween. Daddy's only playing."
Little did the girl know Halloween was NEXT week and that daddy wasn't playing.
"Yes, that's it," sighed Juliah. "Daddy's playing." She glanced at the microwave that read 10:36 in bright green numbers.
"And it's all just wed paint wight mommy?" asked the girl innocently. She plopped down on the floor next to Taylor and started shaking him. "Wed paint, wight mommy?" asked the girl again.
"Yes, that's right." A smile, the first real one of the day, spread slowly across Juliah's face. "Red paint."
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