MicroHorror

Jimmy held the .38 to his head, ready to die. At least he thought he was ready, as he stood on the rooftop of the twenty-story apartment building. His wife of fifteen years had left him for another man. A more exciting, vibrant man.

Joanne was a vicious woman, venom for blood. Verbally, in private, always in private, she rivaled the best abusive talkers on the planet, never needing alcohol to be at her best.

“You pathetic piece of mouse shit,” and “Be a man, for fuck’s sake,” two of her favorite sentences.

He had no idea why she said such odious words. Maybe she just went crazy, had cracked like a fault line, the good part lost forever in a deep abyss.

Jimmy had a stable, well paying, $70,000-a-year bank job. Joanne drove a Mercedes, bought and paid for with Jimmy’s money and credit.

They had no children, thankfully, not his choice, but her selfish preference.

“They’d destroy my figure as well as my mind,” she’d say every time he brought the subject up, adding, “and what little sanity I have left after having to deal with morons like you all day.”

Jimmy ultimately lost his job, his wife keeping him up all hours of the night, purposely. She’d unplug the alarm clock when he finally did fall asleep. “Payback,” she’d said, for all she’d been put through.

Jimmy kept the apartment, Joanne moving out, taking whatever she wanted, leaving the dog, Marty.

Marty, Jimmy’s beloved Basset hound, was in the apartment. He remembered this fact as he stood on the roof’s edge. What would happen to Marty? He’d probably go to his wife, and she’d no doubt call the pound. A dog at his age, ten, wouldn’t last long. If no one came by the apartment, the dog could go days, weeks, before starving cruelly to death.

Jimmy stared at the street below, cars racing by, pedestrians on their way. This was all Joanne’s fault, leaving a horrendous ruin in her wake, a human hurricane. How selfish could Jimmy have been, remembering now that he’d left the stove on. The whole building could’ve gone up, lives lost. It was all the bitch’s fault.

Later that evening, after turning the stove off and feeding Marty, Jimmy sat in his car outside of his wife’s lover’s brownstone. He’d found a better home for those .38 slugs.