Unintended Retribution by Virginia Hainsworth

He slammed the door as he left.  Its sound echoed down the hall.  Celia sat down on the bar stool in the kitchen and pressed the damp towel against her eye.  A normal start to a normal day, although to be fair to Joel, he didn’t usually strike her face.  To be fair to Joel!  She remonstrated with herself.  He wasn’t exactly fair to her.

And yet today would turn out to be anything other than normal.

She stepped down from the stool and walked unsteadily over to the sink to run the towel again under the cool water.  She turned the tap on, put the towel in the sink and, leaving it there, walked out of the kitchen and towards the cupboard under the stairs.

The light bulb in the cupboard had blown and so she reached inside and fumbled about, eventually locating the reassuring, comforting feel of the tall, slim bottle right at the back.  She was about to grasp it and pull it out, when she felt something else.  Squashy, plump fabric of some sort.  She pulled it out into the light and was surprised to find Joel’s old football mascot, a small brown teddy bear.  She reached back for the bottle – mustn’t forget that.  Then, with a sigh of relief, she brought out the half full Smirnoff.

Minutes later, she was back in the kitchen, with the first vodka and tonic of the day, a cold towel and a battered old teddy bear.

After the first huge gulp of liquid had burned its way down her throat, she found herself reaching into the cutlery drawer and extracting a small, sharp vegetable knife.

Joel was still driving to work when he felt the first sharp pain in his lower back.  He winced and shuffled about to ease the discomfort.  The next pain was even sharper still, but at the bottom of his rib cage, and caused him to swerve the car ever so slightly.  It was the third pain, in his chest, near to his heart which caused him to swear. 

‘My God’, he thought, ‘I’m having a heart attack’.  He pulled over to the side of the road, trying to slow his breathing down in order to calm himself.

As the car stopped, he found himself gasping for breath, trying to breathe in huge gulps of air, but feeling as though his chest was caving in.  Now panicking, he could feel his throat constricting as he tried desperately to gain air.  He was going through the frantic motions of drawing air in, but nothing was happening.  His vision started to blur.

In the kitchen, Celia was again leaning over the sink, but this time not with the towel in her hand.  The tap was running fiercely and the small brown teddy bear, now partially shredded, was soaking wet as she held its face under the streaming water.  The coolness of the liquid felt as reassuring as the vodka had done.  Indeed, it was only the thought of having another drink that made her pull the knotted bear from under the tap.  She walked back to the bar stool, climbed upon it and poured another huge drink.  She breathed out a long, relaxed, satisfied breath.

Joel was never to breathe again.