Appreciated

A short suspense story with elements of humor that i wrote in 2013, it has inspiration from my childhood and Stephan King's "the Shining"

Tim Blake lived an under appreciated life.  Awakened rudely from his routine slumber,  The sun shown through the window spotlighting him next to the plain old nightstand where he routinely kept his glasses.  Tim looked at the slowly falling sun for a minute, watching the light of life go by and realized it was time.  His sons, Tom and Jules were had begun pulling his feet from the other side of the bed in a thrashing motion.  Tim reached for the glasses on his nightstand quickly glancing at his flushed weak reflection in the bedside mirror.  Grasping hurriedly he realized they were not there.  The sudden realization and constant clawing at his feet infuriated Tim.  He suddenly barked at his children, requesting his ability to see with irritability displayed in rage.  The little brats ran away in terror as he fell out of bed trying to escape the fingers tickling his feet.  Laying on the floor in exhausted frustration, his wife Karen came in the room stomping like a dinosaur.  Tim gazed at the giant standing before him frowning as if he had done her wrong.

 

Karen had begun roaring. "Do you think you own our family?  Terrifying our children, oh poor Jules he's crying in the bathroom now, and wouldn't you care, all you do is yell, sleep n work, cmon get up n stop being lazy, i swear...."

Karen continued to drone on as he leaned on the radiator getting up slowly.  After a hard day at work, getting out of bed and working more was only what he deserved, he thought sarcastically.  Mr. Blake worked an office job with constant paperwork and a demanding boss.  Unfortunately for Tim this caused a number of issues in his already stressful life.  keeping a steady life in the countryside as well as holding a four member family together was enough work for him.  He also had that tiring hour commute to the city.  His wife however was most concerned with his weight.  Tim found his spare glasses, dragged on his neon orange sports jacket, grabbed his sneakers and set off on his routine evening walk

"Look at you Tim, you cant even fit into your nice fleece you used to wear on our date nights"  His wife said with a mockingly concerned expression.

"Well I aint the only one." He said cleverly but still annoyed.

Karen, his wife frowned and stomped away.  Feeling quite satisfied with that conversation, Tim felt he better stop screwing round and returned to his doormat position as was his place in the family.

While on the tranquil walk, Tim felt it's time to stop being pushed around so much.  It was already sundown and his wife would be even grumpier after having cooked super alone with the kids.  The route he took was very enjoyable and offered a sort of Zen to his otherwise stress filled life.  Filled with apple trees, rolling hills, and a local quiet farm only a mile away from their residence,  It was a beautiful walk although there was a pace he tried to distance himself from while on it.

A murky swamp filled always with a deep mist and an unpleasantly rank smell was near his route.  Rumor was the previous residents of the nearby farm were priests of an extremist cult who made sacrifices in the horrid swamp.  The news of these terrible rituals was even in the local paper and a documentary was made to publicize the thing even more.  Fortunately for Tim, Karen didn't know the thing even existed.Tim was thankful for that because otherwise Karen wouldn't have agreed to buy the peaceful house due to some superstitious probably exaggerated nonsense.

Pausing to try and hear the chatter of spring birds and embrace the calming wind, Tim relaxed.  He realized he did not need to think hear or see, he was at peace with himself.  During this moment of soothing tranquility his mind yearned for so deeply he was abruptly awoken by Katy Perry's "California Gurls"  His pocket was vibrating.  He irritatingly recalled the tone's relation as his wife who has said the song was "soo cute".  Grabbing his phone violently with his worn carpal tunnel ridden fingers and opening the outdated piece of junk, he realized both the time ad why his wife would be calling.  He closed the flip phone then with an unexpected rush of adrenaline, threw it on the pavement.  The strength and savagery of his throw made the object bounce to the nearby asphalt.  A car sped by.  A crimson Camaro with a sunroof.  Rich and clean the car quickly raged on.  Tim watched in subtle glee in a trance as the wheels of the car grinded upon the phone crushing both the sound of the irritable song, the cheap metal and the bitter reminder of his wife into insignificance.  

Tim walked back  home.  While walking, he started to hear that ringing again  More agitated than previously he reached into his pocket only to realize what had happened a only a mere moment ago.  He began to run home, quickening his pace,  attempting to run away from the track.  As he quickened his pace the ringing grew in volume and suddenly everything stopped he was home.  Standing upon his wooden porch like a living statue he saw the axe he had used once Karen had commanded him to build the tree swing set.  Tim began to admire the thing, its craftsmanship, texture of the wood, pinpoint sharpness of the blade.  Grasping it firmly he stared into the mirror of the blade looking himself in the madness of the metal powerful and bold.  He grabbed the smooth handle lifted it over his shoulder and knocked on the door of his previously hellish abode.

In entrance Tim said, "Honey , I'm home".  The ringing returned

Reviews

[Morgan Yai]

It's a cool idea, though I think there are parts that could be better written and some places where it is evident that you just didn't re-read the story before publishing it here. Overall, good job! I've always wanted to write horror but never have been very good at it.

[ThePhoenixWriter]

Thank you Morgan, i honestly was exhausted from work when i copied this from a paper i wrote like 3 years ago sooo yeah i gotta re-vise it a bit when i get a chance, but thank you and by the way don't say that about yourself.

Last year after i recovered from my depression i realized everyone is better than they think we are, we all put ourselves down in some way when we shoulden't. And especially in our case writing is an art, every art form has an audience somewhere who will enjoy it. Im sure your horror writing will have an audience too.

[Morgan Yai]

Thank you. That is very kind of you to say

[Srchaud]

You should not use so many adverbs. You also in the first paragraph you use routine and realize alot.
There is a need for an edit, to help smooth out the prose. The idea can work but I am not sure I get it, Why did he change so abruptly?
You did do a good job at making us hate Karen and sympathize with Tim. At the end you do root for him to kill her so the twist would work very well with a bit more setup.
I would say this needs a few more edits to make shine.