Cleaved (Triptych 2 of 3)
The sharp snap of the gold band breaking echoed in the dim kitchen. Jim sat motionless on the linoleum floor, his thumb tracing the jagged edges of the ruined ring. A single tear broke free, carving a hot path down his greasy cheek before dropping onto the floor. Then another followed. And another.
He watched a small pool of saltwater form near his knee. Swiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he grabbed an oily rag from his back pocket and scrubbed at the floor. But the water didn't absorb. The cloth slid right over it, leaving the droplets perfectly intact. They trembled as the surface tension snapped the little bits back into a singular cohesive shape.
Over the next week, the house remained agonizingly silent. Jim didn't call anyone. He didn't answer his phone. He kept entirely to himself, locked in his self-imposed isolation. Every time the heavy atmosphere of the kitchen pressed down on him, his eyes betrayed him. And with every tear, the puddle on the floor grew.
By Tuesday, it was the size of a dinner plate. By Thursday, a manhole cover. But its size wasn't the most disturbing part; it was the way it moved. When Jim shuffled to the living room, a soft, wet slurp trailed behind him. The puddle glided across the hardwood, stopping when he stopped, hovering just at the edge of his peripheral vision like a loyal, pathetic puppy.
He tried to destroy it. He grabbed a rubber squeegee and violently shoved the shivering water toward the floor drain in the laundry room. It slid effortlessly, but upon reaching the metal grate, it simply sat suspended over the holes, refusing to sink into the plumbing. Jim's frustration curdled into frantic anger. He couldn't breathe. This clinging, weeping thing was suffocating his space.
On Sunday, his patience finally snapped. The puddle was hovering near the hallway, rippling softly. Jim stomped into the garage, seized a large, orange five-gallon bucket, and marched toward the basement door. He threw it open and took heavy, deliberate steps down the wooden stairs, listening for the wet, trailing schhh-schhh of the water sliding down the steps behind him.
As the puddle cascaded onto the third step, Jim spun around, thrusting the bucket upward. With a heavy splat, the entire mass sloshed directly into the plastic container.
Jim didn't pause. He scrambled up the stairs, chest heaving, his fingers white-knuckling the plastic handle. He sprinted past the kitchen—the water violently thrashing against the bucket walls—bounded up the stairs to the second floor, and threw open the master bedroom window. With a guttural yell, he hurled the bucket's contents into the empty street below.
He stood panting by the window screen. The house was finally silent and Jim felt his mind expand into the empty spaces of the home. The weight that had been pressing against his skull all week vanished. He was alone. Truly free.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell shattered the serene air.
Jim’s head snapped up. Adrenaline surging, he plowed down the stairs with thunderous footfalls, loud and unrestricted. He grabbed the front doorknob and yanked it open, a proud, breathless grin on his face.
The porch was as empty as his house.
His frustration flared instantly. He stepped out into the doorway, looking left, then right. Then, he saw her. Standing on the sidewalk across the street was a woman. The posture, the hair—she looked just like Nita.
Jim didn’t hesitate. Wearing only his socks, he bounded outside. His focus filled with sudden vigor, charging down his concrete pathway toward the sidewalk on his side of the street.
Before his right foot stepped off the curb, his sock sloshed in a shallow puddle. He lifted his left foot to carry his momentum into the road, but he couldn't move forward. Instead, he found himself lunging into the street. He wasn't standing in the water. He was sinking into it.
The puddle swallowed his foot past the ankle. His pant leg was instantly soaked, gripped by the water like a vice, refusing to pull out. Desperate, he planted his left foot wildly into the roadside gutter to gain leverage.
He twisted his body violently, yanking upward. But the puddle fought back. A forceful, unnatural pressure tugged downward. His left foot, planted in the gutter, suddenly slipped into the slick, rusted opening of a storm drain.
Faster than he could even wince, the shallow puddle's tug violently escalated into a roaring whirlpool. Jim reached for Nita, but where she would have been standing sat a dumpster full of Halloween trash.
Jim’s right side seized, as the puddle pulled him into an impossible depth below. Gravity, momentum, and the sharp metal edge of the curb simultaneously dragged the other half of him down the narrow throat of the storm drain.
The silence before the short struggle returned.
The street was empty. The puddle sat perfectly still by the curb, reflecting a pristine, cloudless blue sky, the texture of the concrete clearly defined just beneath its shallow surface. Jim was entirely hidden, the only evidence of his existence a single smear of deep red staining the rusted metal frame of the storm drain.