A man died today because he wasn’t reading the signs before him. Everything was there, laid out like jigsaw pieces, waiting for him to make them a cohesive vision. Instead he turned his head and decided it was better to live blindly than see the real world before him, naked, horrible, beautiful.
The man’s name was Neville Taylor, he was a small man, with piggish features and a saggy middle. He kept his brown hair cut close, and his mustache pencil thin. Neville worked for an investment firm in downtown Cincinnati, where he did little more than stare at a computer screen, crunching numbers. The pay was decent, but the work was a palpable weight of bland servitude on his chest that made it hard to breath, made it hard to imagine freedom, creativity, and color beyond the monochrome of his existence. His home life was possibly even more depressing, married to the same woman for thirteen years, not out of love but out of familiarity, they rarely spoke more than a few sentences to each other everyday. There were no kids, on the account of Neville’s low sperm count. Neville thought it just as well, he didn’t think he could handle being a disappointment to his children as well as his wife.
The day started like any other for Neville, alarm clock blaring at six thirty in the morning, he rolled over to shut it off, got out of bed, and headed to the bathroom, without even looking at his wife that had been lying next to him. If Neville had looked he would have seen that she was awake, and had a distant look in her eyes, as if she were in a place inside of herself, seeing things for the first time, feeling things for the first time, and scared to death of what she saw and felt. Neville however, wasn’t seeing the signs, so he trudged into the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face and turned the shower on. After testing the water, he hopped in and lathered down in a listless manner. Neville’s body wasn’t anything to write home about, and he knew it. Knowing that it was little more than a torture device for him, and at times, for his wife, he paid it little regard as he lathered up his skin and hair.
Neville exited the shower, toweled off and set about to the daily ritual of grooming and dressing himself for another day at the office. Brushing teeth, combing hair, and applying cologne and antiperspirant, Neville was a study in going through the motions. Come seven fifteen, Neville was out the door on his way to work. He drove a beat up 1991 Ford Escort hatchback that was maroon in color. It hiccupped to life as he turned the key and set off downtown towards his workplace. Much of the day went by without much to do in the way of change. He got to the office, made some coffee and sat at his cubicle, then began to crunch numbers, leaving off where he had left off the day before. The work never lessened, only stayed a static constant. Once done with one document, there was always another. It had been that way for the last eight years. At about two in the afternoon he received a call.
“Randall and Kramer Investments, this is Neville speaking,” he droned.
“Neville, it’s Monica, I need you to come home.” It was his wife, she rarely called him at the office and never asked him to come home early. Another sign Neville missed.
“What is it Monica?”
“Nothing, just, well, I love you, Neville.”
“Okay, but what do you need me to come home for?” He was starting to get perturbed, he had work to do, and she wasn’t making any sense.
“We need time to be together Neville, we haven’t spent time together in a long time, and I miss you.”
“What are you talking about, Monica? We had dinner last night, we spend plenty of time together. Listen, I have a lot of work to do, I’ll be home a little after six, we can talk then.” With that he hung up, not saying goodbye, not even saying he loved her. Had he been paying attention he would have noticed that it had been a long time since she’d said she loved him, and even longer since she said she’d missed him. The rest of the day hurried along without much more of a hitch. At five-thirty he got into his car and headed home, not even remembering his conversation with his wife. He entered the door at just after six and hung his coat up. Then went to the freezer to get a beer. He pulled the tab off the Coors Light can and turned around to see his wife, naked, staring at him. She had tear streaming down her face, leaving her looking wounded, which seemed to intense her looks to something resembling beauty. Her hands trembled as she held the .38 in her hand. Neville hadn’t seen the gun before, and wondered where she got it.
“Jesus, Monica,” Neville said, finally showing some hint of emotion. “What on earth are you doing with that gun?”
“I love you, Neville,” she breathed between sobs. “You aren’t happy the way you are, we aren’t happy the way we are. Life is terrible for us and we’re letting ourselves be tortured by it’s monotony.”
“Monica, you’re talking crazy, put down the gun will ya? Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t come home when you asked, but this is ridiculous!”
“I knew you wouldn’t come home, I knew you couldn’t see what’s happening to us, but I love you, and I wanted to try and help you see it. But you won’t, you can’t.” She thumbed back the hammer of the heavy revolver.
“Monica please! Help me understand! Don’t do this!” Neville was panicking, stricken immovable with fear. His legs felt weak and his bowels turned to water. He was stammering apologies and questions as tears started to well in his eyes. He didn’t understand, didn’t know how this had happened. He didn’t see the signs.
Neville hadn’t seen his wife awake that morning, hadn’t seen the receipt for the gun three days ago in the trash when he went to throw a beer away, he hadn’t seen the tears in Monica’s eyes the night before while they watched Letterman. He hadn’t seen anything, he had blinded himself, living inside his head, because the world was cruel and ugly and didn’t want him anymore than he wanted it. He hadn’t seen the signs, and now he stood there, urinating on himself as his wife pointed a gun at him, naked, in their kitchen. He begged her for his life, the one he was wasting every second of every day. He begged her for mercy, for understanding, for love. It hit him rather oddly, that now, while she was getting ready to kill him, that he loved her. He fell to his knees, he didn’t want to leave her alone, didn’t want to be without her. He didn’t believe in God, mostly because it seemed that God didn’t believe, or care, about him. Neville cried, not understanding why now he was ready to live life, now that it was ending. Neville didn’t understand why his wife was naked and leveling a gun at his head.
“I’m sorry, Neville, but you need this, you’ll be much happier after it’s over, honey.” She said, the tears stopping and cold resolve showing behind her eyes. “I’m sorry, Neville, “ she assured. “I love you.”
She pulled the trigger, a loud bark sounded an Neville’s head snapped back, the contents of his skull spewing out over the egg shell colored refrigerator, over the walls of their kitchen, then as he slumped down to the ground, all over the kitchen tile floor. The light was fading, Neville couldn’t see anything, didn’t know what was happening. Just before everything faded, Neville heard distantly one more bark of the gun and the sound of a body thumping onto the floor across from him. Light faded, darkness came, and Neville hurt no more.
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