Funny in Odd Places

Dara sits quietly in a worn leather chair in a dimly lit corner of the room biting her nails. Each time she pauses to discard the debris out the side of her mouth, her eyes look about sharply at everything and nothing in particular.

Bradley, her friend (pronounced “ffrriiieeend” conveying an intimate or sexual relationship), peeks over the top of his book inquire again with growing impatience in his stressed tone, “Is everything ok?” It has been impossible not to notice the anxious behavior she had been exhibiting increasingly over the last several days.

Again, she ignores his question. He asks again looking deliberately in hope of making eye contact to get a read on where her head really was. This time she nods without looking in his direction. An uneasy silence takes up again between them. Bradley continues to watch her as he pretends to continue reading. Abruptly she stands up and leaves the room. When she returns she has in her hand several cans of scouring cleanser. “What are you doing with that?” he asks inquisitively.

“When I was a little girl the texture of this stuff always fascinated me. I wanted to eat it, but I knew it was poison. I can’t think of any food that has this texture. Hmmm, so for all these years I’ve longed for a texture that can only be satisfied with something inedible.” Bradley was not expecting this, so he just sits there with a furrowed look of growing concern. Dara continues,  “Do you realize there’s no more of this in here? I got a half dozen of them last week and this is all that’s left. Do you think I should get more? Nevertheless, it kills. Maybe I shouldn’t buy it anymore?”

“Ummm, I don’t know.” Bradley’s words slide out like seeking a bulls-eye, refusing to let his teeth hold them hostage.

“Brad, do you ever think,” she puts the cleanser down on the table in front of him and moves back to her chair in the corner, “ about what a miracle this stuff is in many ways?”

“Oooo…kaaay,” he says leaning in to search her face, hoping her eyes would give him a clue. Dara resumes her nail biting.

“Do you hear that?” she sits up straight. “Hear what?” he puts his book down to listen, his eyes looking up as he stretches his neck to facilitate closer listening.

She gets up and starts to walk around hesitantly as if she is reluctantly following a noise to its source. After several minutes, she comes back and sits down again, this time on the couch with Bradley.

“You know what that is,” she looks over at him to verify his collaboration in the imperceptible conspiracy.

He shakes his head, “Not exactly.”

“Everything is entitled to live right? I mean the right to reproduce is like in the constitution, its one of those God given rights, isn’t it?” she looks over at him again.

“What does that have to do with the sound?” Bradley wonders if he should be concerned. He searches her face for a hint that this is a joke that she is just kidding around. However, he thinks there is something different this time. There is a panicky fear in her eyes that seems to be a veil moving in like an ominous thundercloud bringing tumultuous rains.

“It’s like that Edgar Allen Poe story.  You know the one where the guy hears that heart beating underneath the floorboards.  It’s his conscious screaming for him to see the truth! Murder is a hard sin to live with, and yet it can seem so unavoidable! ” Her hands are flailing about in the air.

“OK, Dara, calm down. Just explain this to me slowly, because I'm not following you.” he tries to put his hand on her arm but she moves away quickly and starts to pace behind the couch.

Abruptly, as if already in the middle of the conversation she begins a fifteen minutes ramble about why the man in the story had to hear the heart. “He couldn’t live with the weight of the truth in his head. Some truths can drive us crazy, ya know?” she pauses to make eye contact.

Bradley’s face cannot hide that he now realizes he has been into the eye of the storm and the rain has come. It is pouring so hard he is unable to see or feel his way out; he is compelled to beg Dara for help. He knows instinctively that she has the eyes needed to maneuver through this mist created by rain hammering on every believable surface. He tries to focus as he hears his voice screaming “What in God’s name is going on?”

Dara extends her hand. He takes it without hesitation, wanting anything but to be lost in the midst of this inexorable downpour.

She leads him down the hall and they stop outside a door. After stopping to take a deep breath, Dara looks at Bradley intently as tears start to burn her eyes. Turning back to the door she throws it open, the first of many unwelcome tears fall. She leads the way as they enter the area and then she points up, “I used the scouring cleanser to kill the mildew on the bathroom ceiling.”

Originally written as a writing exercise. The mission was to write a story that used the line quoted in italics at the very end as the story prompt.