MicroHorror

Liz kicked her shoes off as soon as she walked in the door. The boss had her running all over downtown L.A. She hadn’t thought about Donald all day.

That ended as soon as she stepped up to her answering machine, on a small table by the front door. It took a few seconds for the realization that she had stubbed her toe on the steel ax by the table to reach her brain and then inform her that she was in extreme pain.

“Dammit!”

She jumped up and down on the foot that was not throbbing, rubbing the afflicted one with her hands. The damn ax. Donald’s idea of joking about something serious. Someone had broken in last summer while she was at work. Instead of offering to move in, Donald bought her an ax and told her to keep it by the door. Idiot.

Before Liz could lock the front door the phone rang.

“Good grief,” she said as she picked it up. “Yes?”

“You sound pissed.”

“Hey,” she cradled the phone between her shoulder and chin and unwrapped the chord to carry it into the kitchen. “Rough day.”

“Donald?”

“Are you kidding?”

Her friend Kara laughed.

“Work and then I stubbed my damn toe on this stupid ax…”

“The one he got you last summer?”

“Right.”

“For your protection?”

“Right.”

Both women laughed.

“How’s he taking the breakup?”

Liz opened the refrigerator. There were two half-empty barrels of yogurt and a rotting hunk of cheese. She broke off a piece and munched on it while she spoke. “Who cares?”

“Come on.”

“Come on, what? You should have heard him yelling at the TV just because they stopped showing Star Trek on Saturday nights.”

“Guys are like that.”

“Not like this.” She ate the rest of the cheese in her hand. “There was something in his eyes. Scared the hell out of me.”

“All right, then. Need to talk any?”

“I’m good for now.”

“You know how to reach me.”

“Thanks, really.”

Liz returned the phone to the table by the door. Both feet went back to protesting the day at work.

“I hear you,” she said to them.

She walked to the bathroom and flipped the water on. The urge to listen to Billie Holiday washed over her. She went to her bedroom. The disc was already in the player.

“You don’t know what love is…” Lady Day set the record straight. Her voice felt like tiny, strong hands, holding Liz up.

She slid into the bath, the music playing from the other room at full blast. Liz thought about the breakup. It had been rough, to say the least. At Marino’s, on Melrose. In a crowded place. That was by design. She had seen exactly how crazy Donald could get. No need to risk being alone with him when she dropped the bombshell that their first anniversary would never arrive.

Donald spent the rest of dinner in absolute silence. Said nothing on the ride home. Refused to engage in conversation of any sort.

“Oh, well,” Liz spoke underneath the booming, if silk-surfaced, anger of Billie Holiday, “My man don’t treat me no good…”

Suddenly the CD player hit a scratch in the disc and began skipping. Liz jumped out of the bath and ran, naked, to her room to shut it off before the annoying sound drove her insane. She looked down the hall and saw that she had never locked the door.

“Dummy,” she quietly said to herself.

She walked to the door, made sure it was shut, and locked it. She was careful not to run her toe into the ax a second time on her way back to the bath tub.

It wasn’t until she was in the water again that she made the horrific realization that she could never have stubbed her toe a second time as the ax was no longer there.