Sticky Cotton Love

There is cotton in her mouth as she stares at the pale, wooden floor that lies beneath her icy feet. If she lifts her head a fraction of an inch she can see the bathroom, where the love of her life is pooling blood thick and syrupy on the floor. She blinks furiously, a cobra constricting tightly around her throat, and looks away, eyes locked back on her planted feet and the warm, deceptive floor. Her right hand is clenched desperately around the telephone, it's keys sticky with the blood of her love.

She closes her eyes painfully and wishes that she'd never found the wedding ring. She wishes she hadn't rushed into the bathroom, screaming, and accidentally -she prays it was accidentally- shoved him into the bathroom mirror, which littered glass on him like a hurricane, full of despair, and a sharp, jagged piece landed perfectly in the palm of her hand and she leaned forward as he leaned forward, and it twisted into his heart, a betrayal, from which he died.

She opens her eyes as a fearsome fist pounds on her door. The police flood in, guns trained on her. She points a single, trembling finger towards the bathroom.

After the police have found the body, and surveyed it silently for a few agonizing seconds, one, who looks remarkably like the dead man she loves bleeding on the floor, comes towards her as if she's a threat when really she's just broken. He commands her to stand up and turn around.

"You are under arrest," he informs her and she drowns out the rest of his words.

The cold metal enclosing her wrists feels like relief and on the drive to the station she swallows her cotton and remembers how to breathe.

Prison feels like paradise.