MicroHorror

“When our mom died,” I said, “she didn’t tell anyone who should buy the house in her absence.” Wiping perspiration off my forehead, I said, “Naturally, she loved you two above me. She put you both on a pedestal like she never did with me. She failed to understand why you didn’t have boyfriends.” I shook my head. “Our mom always played music around you two. With me, she just hoped for a life that didn’t include jail.”

Inside my shaky hand, I held a pistol like it weighed fifteen pounds. “Our mom would bawl like a baby to know that I would outlive her daughters. Maybe I will live in jail; maybe I should live in jail. Our mom didn’t prepare me for life outside this house, like she prepared you both.” I added, “She tried to prepare you, anyway.”

Below the yellow tabletop, I pulled the trigger until I emptied the small black pistol completely. My vision blurred; I threw my head back. Without control of my queasy innards, I vomited thickly. My fluids landed inside the basket behind the table at which I sat. Across from me, my identical sisters, looking limply at the tabletop, finally shut their eyes. For me, the family just ended, like it hadn’t after I had thrown the bushel of fluffy blue flowers on the casket that held my embalmed mother. I informed my sisters that I would never look at their naïve faces anymore, but they couldn’t hear me.

Gathering my duffel, I walked into the emptiness of daylight. With the sky just a bit chilly, the sun beamed like a lighthouse beacon. Likely, a neighbor had heard the shots, which still bounced loudly off the walls. Someone probably dialed the police. Perking my head, I heard the blare of sirens; they bleated rhythmically in opposite directions. With luck, I should be able to drive to Mexico, and escape jail. After five years for manslaughter, I wished to never expose my body to a jailhouse guard anymore. Still, I couldn’t look at my sisters like I had for twenty years. My enthusiasm for my family had left my body like sour vomit just did. Tossing my lengthy hair, I yelled, “Freedom,” and trotted joyously into the yard. As usual, my rusty Chevrolet waited, but to me, it looked immaculate. With broken doors and bent fenders, it impressed me like a limousine would.

Touching my jeans, I didn’t feel the bulge of my wallet. Any trip required money. Quickly, I walked back into the house and poked my hand into the desk by the door. At that instant, I heard a voice. “What brought you back?” Another voice said, “We can live without you.” On opposite sides of the couch, my sisters sat, leaning apart like a couple that had just fought bitterly. When I lifted my eyebrow, they looked optimistically at the other, like the problem that had broken their family would never come back.

Immediately, I froze, looking at familiar people. Actually, I looked at two lonely spirits that had just separated; I understood as I walked to the table, where I had shot my sisters. Their conjoined body still rested in a chair. Always dominant, Katherine said, “Like you, we will live freely, too.” Cat nodded quickly.

With the head of Katherine bobbing limply, the forehead of her shy sister pressed the yellow wood like a sticky substance held it. The thick body that shared one heart but two heads bled profusely onto the floor; my sisters, limp and bloody, brought pain into my body. Uncontrollably, I collapsed, with numbness palpable in my limbs. My family would look upon the house with freedom; like a penitentiary, it would hold me eternally.