Wednesday

Wednesday

On one of those glorious March afternoons when sunlight paints spring's promise on everything it touches by amplifying colour and texture just enough to alert the senses to the changing of gears, a small white car passed along a wide avenue clotted with traffic.

Eyes fixed on the road ahead, clutching the wheel at precisely ten-and-two, he drove exactly the speed limit. Other vehicles would hover behind for a moment, then signal and fly by, exasperated looks thrown at his closed window.

The garage door rolled up smoothly to envelop him in the spotless cool of carefully hung tools and covered snowblower and empty plastic trash bin he rolled to the curb every Tuesday morning.

Home was a warm blanket of silence after the din of his outing. The cat slunk toward him in languid stride as he set his plastic grocery bag on the kitchen counter and rummaged its contents...a furry slinking and weaving 'round his ankles.

Crinkling bag-plastic ceased and the electric can opener rent the quiet, grinding. The cat raced him to the kitchen table where her dishes sat atop a placemat on one side. He set the can of tuna between her bowls of water and dry kibble and passed a hand along her downy back as she crouched to wolf down the fish.

A silent cordless phone and unblinking answering machine watched him shuffle through the arched door to the livingroom clutching an ostrich feather duster. The sticky wet sound of the feasting cat followed him as he clockwised the room, lifting each photo and souvenir and medal and trophy, swiping endtables and lampshades and plant leaves and television screen. He set the remote on the arm of his recliner, adjusting the rectangles to match. He stacked coasters, fanned coffee table magazines in precise arcs, and stood back to survey the result.

The room looked exactly as it had when he entered it. He gave it a curt nod and proceeded down a short hall to the bedroom.

He had washed every stitch of laundry that morning and it sat in tidy, folded piles on the double bed. Socks and underwear were stowed in their respective drawers. Undershirts. Handkerchiefs. Shirts and slacks shaken and hung by colour and style in the narrow closet.

Beneath a west-facing window his desk stood striped by sunlight through canted blinds. On the glass surface a brand new file folder. He touched it briefly. Shook his head. Dusted the blinds.

Oak nightstands sentried each side of his bed, a wrought-iron lamp on each. He dusted one, then circled the bed to sit by the other. From the nightstand drawer he pulled a photograph, faded and curled at the edges. A wedding scene, beaming bride and groom sandwiched between their chiffoned and tuxedoed attendants. He stared long and hard into the eyes of the bride, his gaze sweeping her sweet features like the caress his hands hungered for over a lifetime.

She looked happy, just as she had every one of a million times he'd scrutinized the image in the last forty years. His own hollow smile, three faces away down the line of groomsmen, reproached him for trying again. He closed the drawer without replacing the picture; instead he dusted the lamp base and propped the photo against it.

For a time, long...short...he'd no idea, he sat holding the feather duster across his knees immersing himself in that frozen moment trapped in ink on paper. Church bells, excited voices, rice falling over the couple to hit the ground like drizzled raindrops... Music...tinkling glasses and toasts and happy tears and the ambiguous murmur of humanity collectively existing without sensing anguish in its midst.

He tore his mind and gaze away. It had been someone else. A thief of his features. A bland anecdote lacking relevance.

But he let the picture stay, to survey the room and watch his exit as he returned to the kitchen. The cat had finished her feast and paused in washing herself to eye him without gratitude. He disposed of the tuna can, washed and filled her bowls of dry food and water, wiped the table and the counters and...was unhappy to find himself holding a dirty kitchen towel when he was done.

Now there was unwashed laundry.

He frowned. The thin towel found itself wadded and following the tuna can into the trash bin.

He drank a glass of water, cold from the pitcher in the fridge, and distantly pondered the curiosity of thirst. Scrubbed the glass and left it in the wooden drainer to drip dry. From the abandoned grocery bag he pulled a bottle of heavy duty cleaner and several celophane-wrapped sponges, which he stacked neatly next to the bottle before smoothing and folding the grocery bag into a small rectangle to join a pile of its kind under the sink.

The bathroom light didn't bounce, it wafted, from the clear plastic sheeting tacked to the ceiling and draping the walls. When he closed the door the final panel fell into place, securing a womb of plastic that covered every inch of the floor as well. Pale light washed in through the sheeting from a small window over the bathtub.

He used the toilet. Washed his hands. Brushed his teeth. Carefully refolded and hung the handtowel, then redraped the plastic over both commode and sink.

He stepped into the tub and closed the pale green shower curtain, sat down facing the faucet, pulled an M1 combat helmet over his white hair and secured the chin strap. Then he picked up a revolver, cocked it, tilted the barrel up into his mouth and squeezed the trigger.

In the dim hallway beyond, next to a bottle and a stack of sponges, the cat recovered almost instantly from the shock of the sound and went back to licking her right flank. Several feet above her head, in perfect Spencerian script, a small note taped to the outside of the bathroom door read:

"My apologies for the mess."