Domestic

He can't believe he's done it again. After all this time, after all these years without incident, after he finally came to understand that apologies no longer needed to be made. After all that, here he is again - his love in the bathroom, bleeding into a towel, bleeding from her nose which he broke with his hand, curled into a fist. After all this time. After all the trust had been pieced back together, bit by tiny bit, each bit pasted to the next by the glue of time and experience - words are not enough to hold these things together.
Rebuilding trust. It's like building a tower of cards with mittens on. The world changes. What was once a peaceful landscape becomes foreign soil with land-mines lurking beneath the surface. You want so much for things to be as they were but they never will be again. The best you can do is to remake the relationship in this newly reconfigured land.
It was hard work but he had done it. More accurately, they had done it together for this is not a work that can be done alone. Life had returned to routine, in a good way.
And then it happened. A conspiracy of unfortunate coincidences. First there was the deadline at work. He had written it down wrong and what he thought was due next week was due tomorrow and he didn't know how he would make up for all that lost time. And then there was the flat tire on the way home, the second one this month. Right in the heart of rush hour, right in the middle of the freeway - all those horns and the middle fingers and the "get-the-fuck-off-the-roads." He made it to the side of the freeway without damaging his rim but there was no median and so the cars behind him had to make their way around. As he was changing his tire he could seek the pile-up he was causing but what could he do? Just as he was lowering the car back down to the road, someone in a passing vehicle flung a cup of soda at him, hitting him in the back above his right shoulder. The cup exploded and the cold soaked him down to his shoes. He turned to find the culprit but all he found was a sea of pointing fingers and laughing faces.
Finally home, finally safe or so he thought. Two steps into the front door and all he wants is to change out of his clothes and get back down to his car to try and dry the seat off. Three steps into the door and his wife rounds the corner talking on the cordless. She almost knocks him over and before he can even say hello, she peppers him with complaints and unjust accusations - "you're wet, I was going to wear this dress our for our dinner tonight, what do you mean you can't go, what deadline, you're dripping on the carpet, this stain will never come out, I just bought this dress, why are you so late, when can we get the tire fixed, open your eyes, are you listening. . ."
At her request, he opened his eyes and it was as if his apartment had become a darkroom lit by red safe lights. The edges of his peripheral vision were blurry. In front of him was his wife's face, distorted, turned inside out, yelling at him through a blob of a black hole. He did not see his wife, he saw this warped face. A signal in his brain went out hurling towards a fork between two neurons, one for flight, one for fight. A tiny electrical impulse hung for an instant in the synapse space between the two. He blinked, the signal chose a course and a fist came circling round. It arced through the air, it gathered speed, force, inertia, intent. And just before it made contact her face snapped into focus, the world returned to normal, he became aware of himself and of her self and his fist but it was too late.
He remembers the sound, a squishy thud, nothing like the concussive sound foley artists made for movie fight scenes. He remembers the surprise and then the shock in her eyes. He remembers how plastic, clay-like the side of her face felt as his fist poured into her flesh. He remembers the bones in his hand compressing, the newtonian exchange of forces. He remembers the follow through and the recoil as her head turned back towards him. And then there was the sound of her scream, short, sharp, piercing him, slicing straight through the center of him. And then the blood. And then the absurd realization of what he had just done.
Fear in her eyes, fear that he had planted there. The act was over, he was back in the present - his mind clear, lucid, plain. But the train of consequences had already left the station, there was no stopping it now. She turned and ran. He followed after her wanting only to apologize, to take back what had already been delivered. She ran from him thinking that he was chasing after her to strike again. She screamed for him to stop, to leave her alone, to go away. He pursued her, wanting to hold her, to explain what could not be excused. He saw his love fleeing from him and for a moment he was close enough to grab her shoulder, to stop her from escaping. He reached for her but then let her go. He had no right to ever touch her again, he understood that much, and so he let her go.
She ran into the bathroom and he fell down on his knees, bewildered, lost, powerless, empty. His face contorted into a shape it had never held before, as if all the muscles in his face conspired against one another, twisting themselves in opposite directions. He let out a scream that was primitive, animal, unnatural. It rose from his bowels, tore through his torso and spewed forth. For a second he thought he had vomited, but only sound had exited past his lips. He buried his face in his hands and screamed again. And then there was silence. And then through the silence he heard her weeping behind the bathroom door.