002: Something's Wrong

A rainy day, and a man's wife is nowhere to be found. What has become of her, and what will become of him? (Suspense/horror)

    The rain was pouring down.  The calendar on the wall said that there was a full moon out, but the clouds hid that from his view.  He had a feeling something wasn’t right.  He had blacked out again.  It wasn’t too uncommon – he used to do it every few weeks not more than a year ago, but he had gotten better.  The medication helped.  His love had helped.  At least he thought that he had loved her.  He had seemed to be doing well when she was around.  Now she wasn’t.  He was slipping.  The rain made a calming yet hectic sound against the pane of the window.  He was doing something important.  He forgot what it was.  That wasn’t too uncommon either.  He’d often leave things half finished before, like the mowing, or fixing things.  She would always complain.  She was kind of cute when she complained.  Her nose would wrinkle up a little and her eyes go a little squinted.  He told himself it was cute.  He wondered where she was.  ‘Was this the weekend she was going to visit her mom?  Or was it her sister?’ he thought as he trudged into the kitchen.  Rainy days made him hungry.
‘No, she was going to take the dog to the vet,’ he decided as he opened the refrigerator.  Glaring into it he found absolutely nothing that he wanted to eat.  That too wasn’t too uncommon.  It seemed that more often than not lately she’d forget to go grocery shopping.  Maybe she expected him to do it.  That was absurd though - he almost never left the house, and he wasn’t about to start to go where there were so many people.  They were annoying and smelled.  They said that he was weird and stank, but they knew nothing of his genius.  Yes, he was a genius.  He had been the one to figure out how to optimize the speed of the processor in most household computers.  He’d quickly optimized all of his computers – there was only one so it wasn’t a big deal, but it was an improvement no matter how you looked at it.  Now, his computer worked at lightning speed.  Unfortunately that didn’t help with him currently problem: food.  He opened the freezer with limited hope for anything appetizing.  Nothing.  Not even ice.  It was a lot worse than he thought.  He’d have to go shopping if she didn’t return soon.  There was still hope for today if there was any sort of dried foods about.  Cereal – that’d be good.  No, no milk.  Pasta.  Everyone had pasta.  Opening the cabinet beside the fridge, he spotted what he had been looking for.  There was one pack of pasta left.  He quickly took it down and moved over to the stove.  Taking out a pot, he filled it with water and turned on the gas.  Lighting a match, his water was quickly on the boil.  Tossing the pasta into the pot, he searched for something to make a sauce.  All he could find was some salt and pepper.  Deciding that was about as good as he’d get, he took them over to the still half raw pasta.  He waited impatiently for the pasta to finish.  To his mind and stomach, it seemed to never end.  The boiling and bubbling went on for hours to him.  It was merely a few minutes, but geniuses have a strange sense of time sometimes.  When he judged it to be finished he dumped the pasta into the sink not bothering with a drainer.   With the same lack of common etiquette, he added the salt and pepper to the splashed pasta in the sink.  Using his hands, he enjoyed his feast of salted and pepper pasta.
Thunder crashed as he climbed up the stairs.  She still hadn’t returned.  He’d worry, but that took too much effort.  He slowly opened the door to their room.  Taking the dog to the vet shouldn’t take this long.  He opened the door to the bath, and then decided not to take one.  He was alone in the house – no one would smell him.  He pulled his shirt off, and undid his pants.  ‘She’ll be back tomorrow’ he thought as he lay in bed next to her corpse.  ‘She’ll be back.’