The Fine Line

It was innocent at the start. After reading the newspaper through, in the afternoon, I reached for a pen and started to work on the crossword. The first one was pretty easy. Okay, I skipped a couple of clues… and there was a little bit of a scrawl in a couple of boxes. Scribbled out letters, written speculations up and down the margins to help with thinking through. It was easy too to put down when I got a little tired of it all.

The next day I again reached for a pen, having completed my ruthless perusal of the paper. It was holiday season and I was indulgent with my time. “Three letter word – male swan…” I called out to my spouse.

“Cob, as in corn cob,” she instantly replied. I filled in the little squares, enjoying the neatness of my letters.

A couple of days later, I began to feel a little irritated by the promptness of her answers. Why does she know so much? How is it that she has instant recall where as it took me three days to remember that the point of a pen is called a nib?

“Where is Tuesday’s paper?” I roared, having spent a fruitless half hour searching for it.

“I threw it out” She replied, “It is Friday today.”

“Yes, but I wanted to finish the crossword.” I growled.

“It’s alright. I finished it. The word that you were missing was nib.” She carelessly answered and moved into another room to do whatever she was up to these days.

I didn’t care. I was fuming. ‘Right!’ I thought to myself, ‘Nobody touches my crossword. I can nut them out myself. I’ll show her!’

It took 3 different dictionaries to find a word to fit 4 spaces – a hops kiln. It was over a week before I finished Sunday’s Holiday Whopper. Before long I was googling for answers, never even pausing to ask myself why I needed to know the capital of Afghanistan beyond an awareness of world news. It wasn’t long before the crunch came.

“Why do you have two weeks of papers stacked up next to your side of the bed? There is even a pile under the bed at the end. I tried to get the vacuum cleaner under there today. Surely we don’t need to keep them all?” my wife asked.

My eyes widened in distress. “No you haven’t touched them, have you?” I asked. My mouth had dried and I could barely swallow.

“No, but anytime soon would be a good time to throw them away,” She looked at me meaningfully,” After all you don’t read them anymore. You just skip straight to the crossword.”

“Yes, but…”I whimpered. I thought desperately to myself, ’You wouldn’t understand. I need them for the clues and what if I haven’t finished one? I need to go back and fill it in when I find the answers. All the answers come to me in the end.’
“Darling, I think you need to find something else to do. Get out and do some swimming or tennis. All those hours on the internet can’t be good for you. Furthermore, you are starting to talk in your sleep – 5 spaces starts with y, second last letter n. I think the word you were looking for was ‘young’. Still it woke me up.” She looked me in the eye.

“Yes!” I cried and jumped up, looking around for my pen.

“Ahem!” She was standing in front of me, frowning.” Switch to sudoku, or it will be intervention, okay?”

“I’ll just throw out those newspapers, my love,” I replied sheepishly.


Word count - 605