Frank McCoy
2004-05-30 22:29:28 UTC
Here's a story I've almost written several times.
Be warned, it's NOT my usual tale of love winning out.
Nor is it a sex story in any real fashion.
Love loses out in this story.
A sad story.
But, I'm looking for comments.
It's not been edited like I usually do before putting it out for
comment; but I felt a need today to see what people thought.
The Prophecy
Copyright Frank McCoy, May, 2004
Thirty three years she had been loved. Loved with an
intensity few women are. Her husband went great lengths out
of his way to make life easier for her ... and eventually
she grew to love him almost as much. At first it had just
been easier to accept his love ... and yes, use him for the
comfort it gave her. Strangely, he had seemed quite
satisfied with that, knowing it for what it was; but
accepting the price as well worth the payment for the
privilege of being close to her.
It's not that the woman was unfair or unfeeling. She
gave the man her sexual favors, and an occasional present or
even more personal thanks for all the things he did. It was
just that at first the man was (to her notion) skinny and
ugly, and not the type of person she once dreamed of having
for a lover. However the tall handsome men were all too
stuck up with themselves, and the rich ones seemed to think
that having several mistresses was their right. Only he
stuck with her through thick and thin and always thought of
her comfort in front of his own. Eventually she married him
because it was easier to live with him than without.
And ... over the years she eventually came to love him.
No, not in his middle years when his face fleshed out to
become quite distinguished and their fortunes soared because
he turned out to be a far better provider than all of the
"rich" men she had earlier thought so well off and had
oftentimes wished she had married instead.
No, it was late in life, close to thirty years later,
that she came to realize the true soul of the man she had
consented to marry almost three decades earlier. Time when
the money was short again; but he still did a good job of
conserving what they had. It was when he STILL looked at
her with the glow in his eyes, still fresh with love, as if
she was the same beauty-queen that had captured her years
earlier, though she had grown dumpy and overweight. The
person who still loved to snuggle up close at night, and
though his spirit was still eager for sex several times a
day, had dropped ability to barely once or twice a week.
The man who cared for her, saw her around the town when she
lost the ability to drive, and seemed happy each time to do
so, whether it was a night on the town, just shopping for
groceries, or taking her on her weekly excursions to church
or Bible Study.
It was the last that made her wonder. Her husband had
been raised in a religious household, but had somehow
slipped she figured; as he no longer went to church ...
though he occasionally would join her if asked. The man was
an agnostic; claiming not to know the god she worshipped ...
and worse-yet, to claim HER god wasn't big enough for him to
worship.
This had occasioned the only two arguments they ever
had; both when she accused him of trying to lead her astray
... an accusation even she knew was unfair; as it was her
husband who took her to church each Sunday when he didn't
have to ... and seemed to enjoy doing so. If she had a
religious obligation and was likely to forget, HE reminded
her. In every way he tended to her spiritual needs, even
though they weren't HIS ways. Nor did he try to convert her
to his way. Though he was far more knowledgeable about even
her own religion, he only discussed the matter when she
asked; and did nothing to try and shake her faith. It was
only that he didn't join her in hers that annoyed the woman.
Once, in a fit of anger over a minor disagreement about
his NOT getting rid of some of the books he took pleasure
in, that she found to be annoying and even anti-religious
(though he never suggested that SHE read them) she accused
the man of, "Being a minion of Satan, trying to lead her
into Hell!"
This cut far deeper than she ever knew. Still, in an
attempt to save the marriage, he convinced her to go with
him to see her pastor, and put the matter before the
religious man. He then explained to the pastor how he saw
to any and all of his wife's religious needs, and in all
ways treated her with respect and love; being careful never
to argue religious points or try to undermine his wife's
religious faith, when indeed he could have.
The woman was mollified ... and the man went on; still
loving her, but cut indeed to a depth she would never know
until too late.
Over the next few years, as the woman grew older and
less able to care for herself, she finally came to
appreciate the love and care the man had lavished on her all
those years. Love that seemed as firm and joyful to be near
her as back when she was young, beautiful, and had any
number of men as admirers.
So, finally her love came to grow and she to love him
back; finally returning what he had been giving freely since
the beginning. She'd go to bed at night to feeling her
husband snuggled up next to her, knowing his love and
feeling her own. In the morning she would do the things a
wife can to make her husband feel loved ... and now enjoying
the task, because it was a pleasure to make him happy, just
like it had been his pleasure to make her happy all those
years.
All their friends and neighbors admired them and
wondered how two people could still act so in-love after all
those years; looking more like newlyweds in their cuddling,
eye-glances, and obvious comfort in each other's company.
One morning the woman woke up weary and aching; but
still snuggled up to her husband and tried for the bit of
lovemaking that would make HIM feel good, even if she
didn't. That, after all, is what love is about. "You
know," she murmured into his ear, "Nobody ELSE would ever
put up with my bullshit like you do." Her husband just
grinned and kissed her. It was true, they both knew it, but
it was how he had managed to catch such an incredible woman.
Well worth the cost, he figured; and now, after over three
decades, he was getting the FULL reward for his patience.
What better way to spend the rest of your life than to wake
up in the arms of the person you love who also loved you?
That it had taken so long to get there, just added to the
value.
Later that morning the woman was sitting in the easy-
chair, intent on the trivial columns of figures she kept on
paper, where she scored the various songs on television in
her own personal manner ... scores that nobody besides her
would ever see, but that she valued because they were HER
work, not that of some idiot critic.
In the kitchen her husband had opened a jar of
"chocolate peanut butter" that they had bought some time
before on a whim ... and had never yet tried. "Today would
be a good time," he thought. So, carefully spreading the
brown stuff on a slice of bread, he then cut it in half
diagonally ... just the way his wife preferred her bread
cut. A nice surprise to brighten her day. He knew she
liked both peanut-butter and chocolate; hopefully she would
like the combination of both even better!
"Here, try a taste of this," he offered; proffering the
slice.
Only ... something went wrong. The bread was too soft
or something; and just as the man reached to hand it to his
wife, his fingers slipped. The bread went flying ... and
(Murphy's Law) landed peanut-butter-side down, right on top
of the paper she had almost finished.
"Damn you!" she cried. "What do you think you are
DOING? You just RUINED the paper I was working on,"
"It's OK," he tried to apologize. "I'll clean it up."
The damage was actually slight; easily wiped off with a
paper towel, which he did. "Here, try this ... I thought
you might like it."
The woman took a bite out of the piece of bread, and
looked like she had bitten into a cow-pie. "Why did you
dump THAT on me?" she demanded.
"I slipped. SURELY you don't think I did it on
purpose?"
"Yes I do. Damn you to Hell."
Aghast, the man looked at the woman he'd loved since
he'd first known her.
"You don't really think that I'd do something
DELIBERATELY to hurt you?"
"A minion of Satan like you will do ANYTHING to make
things miserable for me and lead me to Hell."
Trying one last time, the man looked at her
desperately, like a man drowning in the ocean would look for
a log ... or even a piece of floating straw. "Do you REALLY
mean that?" he asked, one last time.
Still angry over the mess he'd made of the paper she'd
been working on for hours, the woman answered angrily but
firmly, "Yes, I do. Now get out," and turned back to trying
to rescue the paper she had been busy with when her husband
had so rudely interrupted. She never noticed the light go
out in his eyes, or the pain which replaced it.
About five minutes later the door slammed. It wasn't
until about half an hour later the woman noticed her husband
wasn't in the house when she got up to fix him a hot
chocolate as a peace-offering for the way she'd been rude to
him earlier.
Two hours later the man still wasn't back
It was close to midnight when the door opened and the
man walked back inside.
"Oh, Dear. I was SO worried about you. Where have you
been?" she cried; tears streaming down her face as she tried
to hug him.
"Gone. Out." He replied; shrugging off her attempts.
"I've got work to do."
"Work? Honey, it's BEDTIME. Can't it wait until
tomorrow?"
"No." The man looked back at her with dead eyes.
"I've got to move my stuff out."
"OUT! You're leaving me?" The woman started crying
again.
"Can't," the man explained. "You can't take care of
yourself any more; and I promised I would."
"But then ...."
"I'm moving into my own room. Since you find me
abhorrent, you won't have to have me around you all the time
any more. Let me know when and where you want to go and
I'll take you."
That was the LAST time he spoke to her.
The next day the woman peeked in the tiny room where
her husband was still asleep in his sleeping bag. "Dear?"
she asked, tentatively. "You said you'd take me to church?"
The man got up, still dressed in the clothes he'd worn
the night before, and went out to the car, not bothering to
lock the house behind him or open the car door for her like
he usually did.
It wasn't a stony silence. The woman TRIED to talk to
her husband on the way to church and then back an hour
later. It was a DEAD silence ... the silence of the grave
... of the death of love.
Over the next month the man retired more and more into
the tiny room of the house he'd made his own. A tiny
fridge, microwave and toaster-oven prepared TV dinners and
similar quick one-person foods. He no longer prepared the
gourmet meals that he previously had so enjoyed making for
the two of them. A tiny TV and his computer seemed all that
he needed for entertainment. Each time his wife requested
going someplace he took her without complaint ... but
without the joyous conversations that had so enlivened their
going-out together before. Sometimes he went to work, and
other times he didn't. His wife never knew if he was going
to be there in the morning or not.
Three years later the woman was still crying herself to
sleep at night in the lonely bed she had once shared with
her husband. On the few times she had sneaked into his room
to try and comfort herself with the bedding that still held
his scent, she had found his pillow damp; and knew he still
cried himself to sleep like she did.
Looking into her husband's eyes one day that week, she
saw the pain and yes, love still buried deep inside. The
look he gave her must have been similar to the look Moses
had in his eyes when he looked upon the Promised Land that
he would never set foot upon.
The woman FINALLY realized that her prophecy had come
true; and in memory realized what she had done.
Hell is the place the Almighty sends you for eternal
punishment and pain ... For what in retrospect might seem
like a minor infraction like using His Name improperly. She
had been the person with complete control of his life; with
her husband completely worshipping her. She had damned him
to eternal pain for spilling peanut-butter on a silly piece
of paper that had been discarded within a week of the time
she finished it.
Hell is also the place YOU go and she had sent herself
by automatically striking out at the one closest to her for
something he couldn't help ... something he had been doing
to make her feel good, not hurt her. Now she would live
forever in the hell of her own creating, with the reminder
of the heaven she had abandoned as a constant reminder in
the next room.
Worse yet, making it truly Hell on Earth, the woman
knew that death wouldn't be a release from pain, either for
him or her ... for she still DID believe in her god, and
knew he wouldn't be any more forgiving for the years of
torture she'd caused her husband to feel. It seems she was
right in her prophecies. She had damned him to Hell, and
(as she had accused) he had taken her there too. Yes, she
was not only right, she was dead-right.
Sometimes it's far better to be wrong.
Be warned, it's NOT my usual tale of love winning out.
Nor is it a sex story in any real fashion.
Love loses out in this story.
A sad story.
But, I'm looking for comments.
It's not been edited like I usually do before putting it out for
comment; but I felt a need today to see what people thought.
The Prophecy
Copyright Frank McCoy, May, 2004
Thirty three years she had been loved. Loved with an
intensity few women are. Her husband went great lengths out
of his way to make life easier for her ... and eventually
she grew to love him almost as much. At first it had just
been easier to accept his love ... and yes, use him for the
comfort it gave her. Strangely, he had seemed quite
satisfied with that, knowing it for what it was; but
accepting the price as well worth the payment for the
privilege of being close to her.
It's not that the woman was unfair or unfeeling. She
gave the man her sexual favors, and an occasional present or
even more personal thanks for all the things he did. It was
just that at first the man was (to her notion) skinny and
ugly, and not the type of person she once dreamed of having
for a lover. However the tall handsome men were all too
stuck up with themselves, and the rich ones seemed to think
that having several mistresses was their right. Only he
stuck with her through thick and thin and always thought of
her comfort in front of his own. Eventually she married him
because it was easier to live with him than without.
And ... over the years she eventually came to love him.
No, not in his middle years when his face fleshed out to
become quite distinguished and their fortunes soared because
he turned out to be a far better provider than all of the
"rich" men she had earlier thought so well off and had
oftentimes wished she had married instead.
No, it was late in life, close to thirty years later,
that she came to realize the true soul of the man she had
consented to marry almost three decades earlier. Time when
the money was short again; but he still did a good job of
conserving what they had. It was when he STILL looked at
her with the glow in his eyes, still fresh with love, as if
she was the same beauty-queen that had captured her years
earlier, though she had grown dumpy and overweight. The
person who still loved to snuggle up close at night, and
though his spirit was still eager for sex several times a
day, had dropped ability to barely once or twice a week.
The man who cared for her, saw her around the town when she
lost the ability to drive, and seemed happy each time to do
so, whether it was a night on the town, just shopping for
groceries, or taking her on her weekly excursions to church
or Bible Study.
It was the last that made her wonder. Her husband had
been raised in a religious household, but had somehow
slipped she figured; as he no longer went to church ...
though he occasionally would join her if asked. The man was
an agnostic; claiming not to know the god she worshipped ...
and worse-yet, to claim HER god wasn't big enough for him to
worship.
This had occasioned the only two arguments they ever
had; both when she accused him of trying to lead her astray
... an accusation even she knew was unfair; as it was her
husband who took her to church each Sunday when he didn't
have to ... and seemed to enjoy doing so. If she had a
religious obligation and was likely to forget, HE reminded
her. In every way he tended to her spiritual needs, even
though they weren't HIS ways. Nor did he try to convert her
to his way. Though he was far more knowledgeable about even
her own religion, he only discussed the matter when she
asked; and did nothing to try and shake her faith. It was
only that he didn't join her in hers that annoyed the woman.
Once, in a fit of anger over a minor disagreement about
his NOT getting rid of some of the books he took pleasure
in, that she found to be annoying and even anti-religious
(though he never suggested that SHE read them) she accused
the man of, "Being a minion of Satan, trying to lead her
into Hell!"
This cut far deeper than she ever knew. Still, in an
attempt to save the marriage, he convinced her to go with
him to see her pastor, and put the matter before the
religious man. He then explained to the pastor how he saw
to any and all of his wife's religious needs, and in all
ways treated her with respect and love; being careful never
to argue religious points or try to undermine his wife's
religious faith, when indeed he could have.
The woman was mollified ... and the man went on; still
loving her, but cut indeed to a depth she would never know
until too late.
Over the next few years, as the woman grew older and
less able to care for herself, she finally came to
appreciate the love and care the man had lavished on her all
those years. Love that seemed as firm and joyful to be near
her as back when she was young, beautiful, and had any
number of men as admirers.
So, finally her love came to grow and she to love him
back; finally returning what he had been giving freely since
the beginning. She'd go to bed at night to feeling her
husband snuggled up next to her, knowing his love and
feeling her own. In the morning she would do the things a
wife can to make her husband feel loved ... and now enjoying
the task, because it was a pleasure to make him happy, just
like it had been his pleasure to make her happy all those
years.
All their friends and neighbors admired them and
wondered how two people could still act so in-love after all
those years; looking more like newlyweds in their cuddling,
eye-glances, and obvious comfort in each other's company.
One morning the woman woke up weary and aching; but
still snuggled up to her husband and tried for the bit of
lovemaking that would make HIM feel good, even if she
didn't. That, after all, is what love is about. "You
know," she murmured into his ear, "Nobody ELSE would ever
put up with my bullshit like you do." Her husband just
grinned and kissed her. It was true, they both knew it, but
it was how he had managed to catch such an incredible woman.
Well worth the cost, he figured; and now, after over three
decades, he was getting the FULL reward for his patience.
What better way to spend the rest of your life than to wake
up in the arms of the person you love who also loved you?
That it had taken so long to get there, just added to the
value.
Later that morning the woman was sitting in the easy-
chair, intent on the trivial columns of figures she kept on
paper, where she scored the various songs on television in
her own personal manner ... scores that nobody besides her
would ever see, but that she valued because they were HER
work, not that of some idiot critic.
In the kitchen her husband had opened a jar of
"chocolate peanut butter" that they had bought some time
before on a whim ... and had never yet tried. "Today would
be a good time," he thought. So, carefully spreading the
brown stuff on a slice of bread, he then cut it in half
diagonally ... just the way his wife preferred her bread
cut. A nice surprise to brighten her day. He knew she
liked both peanut-butter and chocolate; hopefully she would
like the combination of both even better!
"Here, try a taste of this," he offered; proffering the
slice.
Only ... something went wrong. The bread was too soft
or something; and just as the man reached to hand it to his
wife, his fingers slipped. The bread went flying ... and
(Murphy's Law) landed peanut-butter-side down, right on top
of the paper she had almost finished.
"Damn you!" she cried. "What do you think you are
DOING? You just RUINED the paper I was working on,"
"It's OK," he tried to apologize. "I'll clean it up."
The damage was actually slight; easily wiped off with a
paper towel, which he did. "Here, try this ... I thought
you might like it."
The woman took a bite out of the piece of bread, and
looked like she had bitten into a cow-pie. "Why did you
dump THAT on me?" she demanded.
"I slipped. SURELY you don't think I did it on
purpose?"
"Yes I do. Damn you to Hell."
Aghast, the man looked at the woman he'd loved since
he'd first known her.
"You don't really think that I'd do something
DELIBERATELY to hurt you?"
"A minion of Satan like you will do ANYTHING to make
things miserable for me and lead me to Hell."
Trying one last time, the man looked at her
desperately, like a man drowning in the ocean would look for
a log ... or even a piece of floating straw. "Do you REALLY
mean that?" he asked, one last time.
Still angry over the mess he'd made of the paper she'd
been working on for hours, the woman answered angrily but
firmly, "Yes, I do. Now get out," and turned back to trying
to rescue the paper she had been busy with when her husband
had so rudely interrupted. She never noticed the light go
out in his eyes, or the pain which replaced it.
About five minutes later the door slammed. It wasn't
until about half an hour later the woman noticed her husband
wasn't in the house when she got up to fix him a hot
chocolate as a peace-offering for the way she'd been rude to
him earlier.
Two hours later the man still wasn't back
It was close to midnight when the door opened and the
man walked back inside.
"Oh, Dear. I was SO worried about you. Where have you
been?" she cried; tears streaming down her face as she tried
to hug him.
"Gone. Out." He replied; shrugging off her attempts.
"I've got work to do."
"Work? Honey, it's BEDTIME. Can't it wait until
tomorrow?"
"No." The man looked back at her with dead eyes.
"I've got to move my stuff out."
"OUT! You're leaving me?" The woman started crying
again.
"Can't," the man explained. "You can't take care of
yourself any more; and I promised I would."
"But then ...."
"I'm moving into my own room. Since you find me
abhorrent, you won't have to have me around you all the time
any more. Let me know when and where you want to go and
I'll take you."
That was the LAST time he spoke to her.
The next day the woman peeked in the tiny room where
her husband was still asleep in his sleeping bag. "Dear?"
she asked, tentatively. "You said you'd take me to church?"
The man got up, still dressed in the clothes he'd worn
the night before, and went out to the car, not bothering to
lock the house behind him or open the car door for her like
he usually did.
It wasn't a stony silence. The woman TRIED to talk to
her husband on the way to church and then back an hour
later. It was a DEAD silence ... the silence of the grave
... of the death of love.
Over the next month the man retired more and more into
the tiny room of the house he'd made his own. A tiny
fridge, microwave and toaster-oven prepared TV dinners and
similar quick one-person foods. He no longer prepared the
gourmet meals that he previously had so enjoyed making for
the two of them. A tiny TV and his computer seemed all that
he needed for entertainment. Each time his wife requested
going someplace he took her without complaint ... but
without the joyous conversations that had so enlivened their
going-out together before. Sometimes he went to work, and
other times he didn't. His wife never knew if he was going
to be there in the morning or not.
Three years later the woman was still crying herself to
sleep at night in the lonely bed she had once shared with
her husband. On the few times she had sneaked into his room
to try and comfort herself with the bedding that still held
his scent, she had found his pillow damp; and knew he still
cried himself to sleep like she did.
Looking into her husband's eyes one day that week, she
saw the pain and yes, love still buried deep inside. The
look he gave her must have been similar to the look Moses
had in his eyes when he looked upon the Promised Land that
he would never set foot upon.
The woman FINALLY realized that her prophecy had come
true; and in memory realized what she had done.
Hell is the place the Almighty sends you for eternal
punishment and pain ... For what in retrospect might seem
like a minor infraction like using His Name improperly. She
had been the person with complete control of his life; with
her husband completely worshipping her. She had damned him
to eternal pain for spilling peanut-butter on a silly piece
of paper that had been discarded within a week of the time
she finished it.
Hell is also the place YOU go and she had sent herself
by automatically striking out at the one closest to her for
something he couldn't help ... something he had been doing
to make her feel good, not hurt her. Now she would live
forever in the hell of her own creating, with the reminder
of the heaven she had abandoned as a constant reminder in
the next room.
Worse yet, making it truly Hell on Earth, the woman
knew that death wouldn't be a release from pain, either for
him or her ... for she still DID believe in her god, and
knew he wouldn't be any more forgiving for the years of
torture she'd caused her husband to feel. It seems she was
right in her prophecies. She had damned him to Hell, and
(as she had accused) he had taken her there too. Yes, she
was not only right, she was dead-right.
Sometimes it's far better to be wrong.
--
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(_/ / (_(_/|_/ / <_/ <_
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/ ' / ™
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(_/ / (_(_/|_/ / <_/ <_