Breathe Easy (Stains Version)

A Roald Dahl-esque story of betrayal and murder, with the obligatory twist ending. There are two versions of the story; the other is the "Delphiniums" version.

Persis Northcote Humbolt’s knees ached as she squatted low to prune her delphiniums. She was willing to endure the pain because of her affection for the blue flowers, the one spot of natural color in the whole apartment. She could, of course, have brought out a stool to the doorway of #806, but that would have involved a different set of pains; better leave well enough alone, she thought. The blossoms brightened up the otherwise drab hallway; she even imagined that somehow they lent some steadiness to the flickering of the fluorescent light overhead. With her thin fingers she applied her shears to the dead and dying branches, and caressed some of the lovelier petals briefly as if to encourage and cheer them into thriving. Yes, keeping this bush looking neat and healthy was important to Persis. At least this was one thing she could keep some control over and claim as her own.

Persis’s head ached, as well. She had not slept well last night, which was hardly unusual anymore. Alistair"Professor Humbolt to his students"had a snore that one would, objectively, imagine to belong to a husky, energetic young man; ironically, the body the snore came from was far from intimidating. Thank goodness they had agreed years ago to sleep in separate rooms! Married for 36 years, they had nonetheless never been intimate very often, nor affectionate, let alone romantically or sexually inclined. To Persis, these past years had started to feel like a prison sentence. Perhaps with good behavior, her confinement would be reduced to a briefer span. Persis sighed wearily, wiping sweat off her forehead.

Normally, a sentence of hard labor would be assigned to a younger inmate, she reflected, snipping off a branch with wilted, rust-colored petals and dried leaves. For her, though, her hard work had begun in earnest more than a decade before, when Alistair was first diagnosed as having life-threateningly bad asthma, coupled with dangerous allergic sensitivity to many things that were unfortunately hard to avoid in their city. Alistair, then 52 years old, had been warned quite sternly by the doctor that if her orders were not followed to the letter, she would not be held accountable for what happened. These orders included a ban against physical labor, the mandatory wearing of a mask whenever venturing outdoors, and the nightly use of a humidifier to guard against over-dry lungs. The humidifier also served to dispense a special inhaling medicine that Alistair needed to keep him breathing regularly; each night, before retiring, a small bottle of the medication was poured into the machine along with two gallons of clean, boiled water. The medication, mixed with the water, was released into the air of the professor’s bedroom gradually during the night, and since that began, he reported that it was much easier to breathe in the morning. He claimed that it felt as if a great burden had been lifted from off his chest.

Unfortunately for Persis, this burden was laid at her feet, along with all the household work. Just lugging the jugs of water from the kitchen to the humidifier in the master bedroom was backbreaking to her, now at the age of 67. She also had to clean and cook. With the unpleasant smell of the medication wafting around, and the arguably-worse smell of mildew that the humid air made it hard to avoid, Alistair’s bedroom was a place she hated to be"but there was no way to avoid it. At least it’s only for a few minutes a day.

The vacuuming and dusting were really at least as bad as filling the humidifier. Few people she had met were as fastidious and set in their ways as Alistair; he was a stickler for details, and insisted on a dust-free living space. Sometimes he thought to thank her for her work, mostly when he lifted his feet off the floor for her to vacuum beneath, but usually he seemed to take it as granted, as something she owed him. It was unfair to her, of course, but it was certainly not fun for him to be next thing to an invalid, so she tried to be tolerant. Everything had to be just so for him to feel really at peace, and the littlest things upset him, bringing him close to an asthma attack. He had even insisted on her taking her potted delphiniums out of the apartment, into the hallway, to reduce the likelihood of an allergic reaction to its pollen. That had led to a noisy row, one of the few she could remember, between them. He had wanted her to throw the potted plant away entirely, but she uncharacteristically had refused. She had not admitted why she had been so adamant; the truth was, she thought of her delphiniums as the only ‘children’ she had ever had. She could not stand to say goodbye to her flowers. At least they still smiled up at her when she passed, unlike her fussy husband.

She had never had a steady job, and they could not afford a nurse or helper to handle these chores, so it all fell to her. Once a month, their young neighbor, Mr Marosi, did some shopping for them, and helped Persis with any small jobs she needed done; he was single, a graduate student of 28 in Alistair’s department at the university. Gregori Marosi had had Alistair as a teacher once as an undergraduate, and had chosen Persis’s husband to be his academic and thesis adviser when he returned for graduate study. Gregori lived in the same building they did, up on the 14^th floor.

Surprised by a call from the hallway, Persis rose from her pruning. Gregori was approaching, carrying two plastic shopping bags and bearing a cardboard box. It was always such a comfort to see him coming with his friendly smile and courteous patience as he inquired about what she needed help with. She had forgotten that this was the first of the month, the day when he would bring groceries and the monthly supply of medication for Alistair’s humidifier. Gregori, a native of Hungary, had always been amiably willing to provide the elderly couple with support and what companionship he could spare. He had a part time job as well, so his schedule was fairly crowded; nonetheless, Persis had grown to like and trust him, and rely on his assistance. She fancied that Gregori valued her friendship, as well, even though he had initially become their visitor on account of his thesis adviser.

Burdened though he was today, he gave Persis an affectionate hug and a kiss on the cheek, and wouldn’t hear of her taking the bags and the carton from him, asking her only to open the door for him. He already knew where everything was to be put away. Persis followed him indoors, leaving the apartment door open for extra light. It was mid-morning, so there was some sunlight, but as usual, no electric lights were on, and the windows had the shades and curtains drawn; Alistair had sensitive eyes, and she had gotten used to a dimly lit living space as well. On this occasion, Persis had a variety of mundane tasks she wanted help with: replacing a fallen curtain rod, changing a light bulb in the study, and filling the humidifier. Since she had forgotten Gregori would come today, she had to ask for his patience as she boiled the big kettle of water and waited for it to cool enough to fill the plastic tank of the machine. The young man puttered around the apartment, making himself useful with other tasks and voluntarily seeking out other little things to do, killing time.

When the water was boiled, Persis had Gregori pour two cups of tea for them"Darjeeling, for special guests"and move the kettle to a little stool that was kept just outside Alistair’s bedroom, close to the humidifier. She always boiled more than enough water for the machine, just in case it needed to be refilled; if not, she used the extra water for drinking and for ice. Now she dumped two trays of boiled-water ice into the kettle to help it cool faster, and turned on a fan to blow on it. Then they sat outside the bedroom, in the hall, on antique chairs that had once belonged to her mother, sipping tea and talking about Gregori’s studies.

When they had first met, communication had been awkward between them, but in time, she grew accustomed to his accent, and he swore that she had helped his understanding of grammar and helped him to speak English more idiomatically; by now, they could relax and catch up without stress. It was pleasant, Persis thought, for the both of them. She had come to accept him as part of her home life. She wasn’t sure just what sort of name to give their friendship; she had never had children, but doubted that this was the sort of feeling she would have for a son. She admired his looks rather too much for that. Listening to Gregori’s tales of scholarly research, she smiled at him and patted him on the arm, squeezing it affectionately...not for too long, she reminded herself. She had set a pile of Gregori’s favorite cookies, ginger snaps, on the hall table,which were never eaten by Alistair, who hated the flavor; it was improbable, she thought, that he even knew the box was in the apartment. Between the two friends, as the rhyme goes, they ate the platter clean.

Soon afterward, Gregori got to his feet, thanking her for the refreshments and conversation and apologizing for having to leave for a study session. Persis thanked him in turn for all his help, not all of which she had discovered yet. It would be, she said, like seeking out Easter eggs, finding Gregori’s little adjustments one by one. Then after another gentle hug, Gregori was off down the hall, trotting to the stairway and upstairs, passing by the elevator without a glance.

The apartment felt emptier again. Persis had no other regular visitors, and Alistair was not much of a companion; when he got home from teaching or research"he was overdue to retire, but too well known for the university to let him go easily"he had little to say to his wife, except to criticize her dusting and vacuuming work. He preferred to eat alone, in his den, the better to study and write, or so he claimed: in normal circumstances, the study was off limits to her, even to clean; she assumed that he tidied it up himself. Then he bathed and retired to his private bedroom, only allowing Persis inside briefly in the evenings to fill the humidifier with water and his medication, and activate it; sometimes she also had to rub in some liniment to his muscles if he felt sore, though that was always done in the kitchen rather than the bedroom. He never reciprocated. Persis was lonely and felt unappreciated.

At first, when they had become engaged, Persis had been overjoyed, flattered at having been asked to marry the handsome scholar; she had never before believed that anyone would ever love her, let alone wed her, and she had assumed at the age of 34 that she would end her days as a spinster. Even when they were newlyweds, Alistair, then 26 years old, had seldom wanted to spend time together, and she soon felt as if he took her for granted; this lasted for many years, leaving Persis feeling empty. She had begun to wonder what she was doing wrong, or how she had failed, to garner such a lack of appreciation and a paucity of what she had always dreamed of as a youngster as “wedded bliss.”

Then, thirteen years ago, when Alistair’s medical problems made themselves known, she felt proud of herself for her patience and forbearance, her selfless support and service of an unfortunate and sickly, though famously learned, husband. For a while, this transitioned into a feeling of self-pity, and then into dull resentment. She felt more and more like an unpaid servant, as if she had been chosen as a graduate assistant to Alistair, rather than a spouse: a second Dorothea Brooke. By dint of marriage, he had avoided the nuisance of having to provide her with a fee. Indeed, aside from grocery money and the little she saved up for herself from whatever was left over after shopping, she had no money of her own to spend, really. Alistair had always insisted that she must not get a job, not even a part time one, and cited (in his scholarly way) her omissions in cleaning, and that she needed to spend her “free time” keeping the apartment properly free of allergens. It was the least she could do, he implied, seeing as he was the sole breadwinner of the couple, and besides, it was a matter of life and death, in a manner of speaking.

For others, cleanliness was next to godliness, but for Alistair, dustiness was perilous. He had almost died of an asthma attack five years earlier, one afternoon, after the vacuum bag Persis was toting to the trash chute in the building’s hallway burst in the apartment, releasing horrid clouds of dust everywhere. Alistair had not been at home at the time, and Persis had tried with all her energy to rid the apartment of the drifting bits of skin and cloth dust, growing nearer and nearer to a panic attack as the hour of his expected arrival had approached. She had thought herself fairly successful at restoring the apartment to pristine cleanliness just moments before seven o’clock; it annoyed her at the time to find that Alistair was late nearly an hour in coming home that day. She was relieved, though, when he had made no unusual comments on the house’s appearance aside from his usual grousing.

When he had asked, unusually, how her day had been, she enthusiastically related her adventure of the burst vacuum bag, in careful detail and in logical order, for she knew that he had little patience for people who could not tell a story in comprehensible fashion. As her story progressed, Alistair had started to glance around the apartment suspiciously, and then started to sniffle. She interrupted her narrative to bring him a box of tissues, and then went on. By the time she was finished, he had started to cough and blow his nose, and he had begun to wheeze. He excused himself just afterward, moving in his halting gait to the bathroom, and Persis could hear his sounds of spitting and panting. In a few minutes, the bathroom door opened, and he shuffled to his bedroom without a word, his breath loud and labored. He slammed the door shut. Soon afterward, Alistair had shouted through the closed bedroom door at her: she was to start the humidifier early and bring him a glass of water and his special medications, which he only took for emergencies. Once she had done these tasks, he had angrily bawled her out from the bed, in between coughing fits, blaming her for putting his life in danger. Then he stormed at her to get out and not return.

Taking a seat outside the door, close to tears of humiliation and remorse, Persis had reflected that Alistair had not offered any explanation for his late return home. She decided not to ask him about it, though, in his current state; better to leave well enough alone. His hacking and moaning lasted for hours. Finally, around 11 PM, he had called to her from the bedroom door. When she had entered meekly, he had demanded that she empty an additional bottle of his medication into the humidifier"something that his doctor had suggested he do only when his asthma attacks were especially acute. She had hastened to comply, pouring more water into the machine so that it was full, and then dumping the medicine in, She had forgotten to bring her wooden stirring spoon with her; rather than going back to the kitchen for it, she decided to stir it with her fingers, not wanting to make him wait a moment longer than necessary. Then she had crept out, feeling Alistair’s angry eyes upon her.

She had kept quiet and tiptoed around the apartment, trying to avoid angering him further; soon, it appeared, his coughing and discomfort subsided; she assumed that he had fallen asleep, exhausted. She wanted to check on his breathing as he slept, but dared not enter a second time, for fear of waking him and being blamed all over again. She hated to feel as if anyone was angry at her for any reason, or that she had let anyone down. She vowed to herself that she would never be careless with a vacuum bag again, and surely could not risk letting Alistair handle a full one.

After that episode, she had been especially careful in her dusting and vacuuming. Gregori had reestablished contact with Alistair around that time, and having discovered that they were close neighbors, the youngster had visited, more and more often, until the current arrangement of monthly visits had been established. Gregori had understood her concern for Alistair’s health, and the importance of staying on his good side, and helped keep the place spotless with great conscientiousness.

As her joints became stiffer with age, she relied on the boy more heavily; by now, she thought, she could hardly manage without his assistance. At the age of 28, Gregori was hardly a child, but to Persis any student was just a youngster, subjectively, and thought of him as a particularly handsome angel. Bless him, Persis thought in a vaguely Heavenwards direction. She was not sure if she believed in God or not, but thought that, on the whole, it would be a sensible belief to foster, so she tried her best to keep some wisps of faith in her heart, despite Alistair’s scoffing every time she mentioned anything about it. That hadn’t happened for years, though; Persis, luckily for her, was capable of learning how to avoid conflicts.

Aware of her growing skill at preventing possible scoldings, Persis felt less tension. It was good to be able to breathe easy for a change, she thought; then, she felt a twinge of guilt as she remembered her husband’s difficulty in breathing. One day, probably sooner rather than later, he would have to retire for real from teaching, and then he would likely be at home both day and night. She would have little time to herself then; she would have to guard her actions constantly to avoid aggravating Alistair’s temper, and his medical conditions as well.

It was after her regular lunchtime when Persis became aware of her reverie; she was still sitting in the hallway chair, an antique upon an antique, teaspoon still in her hand. She wearily stood and brought the tea set back to the kitchen for cleaning. She did not expect Alistair to come home for lunch, so her lateness was not a real problem; he never came back from the university till evening. She made herself a tuna sandwich and a glass of milk for lunch, from the groceries Gregori had just brought. Soon she was finished and the dishes were clean, the tuna fish can was in the recycling bin, and she was left to her own devices again. Having done little, there was very little cleaning around the apartment that was really needed, though of course she knew she would dust and vacuum the whole area anyway: Alistair expected it of her, and she knew he would inspect everything and give her grief if she had failed to “keep house” properly. Tired though she was, she figured she had better do the job properly, so instead of taking a nap, she began her process of tidying up the apartment early. The activity would aid her digestion, she thought.

The last step of this cleaning finally arrived two and a half hours later: she had to tip the kettle, still resting on the stool, into the tank of Alistair’s humidifier, and empty the first of the new bottles of medicine in, as well, stirring the mixture together and closing the machine up so it would be ready for her husband’s return. The water was no longer hot by that time, thank goodness. It took a steady hand to pour the kettle out in a steady way, as the water inside would slosh around at first, disturbing its balance. Persis was well used to this, however, and spilled nary a drop; she nodded with satisfaction in her work as she rose and returned the kettle to the kitchen, closing the bedroom door behind her. Easy when you know how, she thought to herself, in lieu of having anyone else to praise her efforts.

Now she was really getting groggy, but it would never do for her to be sleeping when Alistair got home. She decided to boil a small amount of water for tea: just one cup, as there was no sense in overdoing it; after her husband went to bed, not long after his return, she would be free to pursue her own course. The trouble was, she thought as she watched the blue flames leap up under the kettle, that she really had no hobbies or leisure activities to enjoy during her time off. When she wasn’t sleeping, she often felt herself at sixes and sevens. She had used to enjoy reading novels, but she found no satisfaction in that any more; she was too scattered, finding it hard to concentrate, and at any rate, Alistair was irritated by novels, calling them “frivolous, asinine nonsense.” She had no television set or radio, either. It was becoming harder and harder for her to pass the time.

She longed for a friend. She had thought that marriage would mean steady companionship, before she had actually experienced marriage for herself. Sometimes she thought of trying to befriend her neighbors, but most of these were young families with children, businesspeople, and the like, too busy and impatient to care much about the old woman down the hall. If Gregori had more time, she thought, she would like to get to know him better and spend more time together, perhaps hold hands...but then it occurred to her that perhaps he was merely humoring her, kind soul that he was. Nonetheless, she thought, she didn’t feel as if he came by regularly only for Alistair’s sake now. In fact, Alistair and Gregori hardly saw each other at their apartment anymore, as their schedules were different, and at any rate, Alistair was only awake at home for brief periods, so thesis discussions were conducted at school now.

The kettle sang, startling her. Her periods of abstraction, she realized, were becoming more frequent lately. Perhaps she could call daydreaming her hobby"though she knew that her husband would sneer if she ever said so to him. She was gradually moving, she thought, from living in a stuffy apartment to living in her own head. She idly wondered if her husband’s medication"that one she poured into his humidifier every day"were making her sleepy as she breathed in some measure of “second-hand mist,” as she might well call it. It was likely enough, as she knew: the bottle included sleeping formula as well as asthma medication. She reached for her jar of sugar on the kitchen counter, opening it and getting a spoonful of its contents, absentmindedly stirring the hot tea as she pictured herself lying comfortably amid a cloud of restful vapor, perhaps in a tropical rain forest by a tinkling waterfall, surrounded by toucans and dripping ferns. Smiling contentedly, she took her first sip of tea.

But it tasted awful. She made a face and spat it back into the cup, her daydream evaporating into nothingness. What was wrong? She looked at the jar of “sugar” that she had just been using, suspiciously, still trying to get the taste out of her mouth. Even before she read the word on the jar, she had figured out that in her moment of abstraction she had mistaken her jar of salt for the sugar. Chuckling to herself, she at first thought that she had an amusing story to share with Alistair tonight; her next thought was that telling him the story would be a bad idea. He would probably think that she was getting senile, and would no longer trust himself to her faulty care. She congratulated herself, nervously, on having preemptively avoided another scene. She wanted no more trouble from Alistair; just living with him"living for him, more like"was stressful enough already.

She felt in that moment that she had given her own life over to him, her husband, and had nothing special to live for aside from her duties. It was all for Alistair. She seemed to herself to be nothing but a bearer of burdens, a utility, a tool, with no value to anyone but him, and no pleasure in life but to get a hug and a kiss once a month from a nice young man who probably just tolerated her out of a sense of guilt or duty, and who would eventually find excuses to stop coming"justified excuses, no doubt, but at any rate, reasons that would prevent him from providing his much-needed support any more. What else was she to enjoy? Just thinking of her life of thankless servitude as a burden made her joints ache all the worse. The delphinium? Yes, well, there was that. But it was really a meager sort of satisfaction, not enough of one to live for.

And in that turn of thought, she first began to consider death as a welcome spot of relief, her only likely release from the meaningless trifles and trials that her life had become. Really, she mused, she needed either a positive joy in her life, or else a good long break; death would serve very well in the latter capacity. She was so weary, really, that this morbid thought did not even give her pause for concern. Just the thought of real rest and freedom from worry was tantamount to liberation; and death, being final, would not be spoiled later by any renewal of her strife.

There was barely enough water in the teapot for one more cup. She hated to waste anything, so she dumped out her salty tea into the sink and rinsed the tea bag under the tap before pouring a fresh cup and adding, more attentively this time, the sugar she had meant to use all along. Honey was better tasting, but too dear, really.

As she savored her first sweet mouthful of orange pekoe tea, she had a sudden thought; made an unexpected connection. She was startled; she sat up, now feeling a surge of energy that was surely not due to the caffeine. She thought of her foolish mistake with the tea, and then of the humidifier, and its special function as a sort of censer. She thought about this even before the idea of Alistair’s death occurred to her as being another potential path to liberation.

Then, she connected all these ideas together in her mind, and unexpectedly found that she had assembled the beginnings of a plan. The thought of being freed from her burden was so appealing to her that she hardly spared a moment of her time in being shocked at herself for such an audacious idea. The image of being unshackled from her husband’s grasp seemed to offer her, literally, the chance to have a new and better life, one that would be for her to enjoy on her own.

Not writing anything down, she sat at the kitchen table, moving her teacup to the side, and began to act out in pantomime the things she wanted to do to effect her escape. She was smiling. Her eyes shone with enthusiasm and excitement. She started to believe that God had given her a second chance at a good life, and she was thankful, in a somewhat odd way. The oddness didn’t bother her a bit.

*

A week later, Persis felt well prepared to put her plan into action at last. She had done her best to interact as little as possible with her surly husband, fearing that she might have a regrettable wave of pity or remorse that would lead her to abandon her intended course, and she did not intend to let that happen. Indeed, she could have acted sooner, but out of consideration for Gregori, she had delayed. She did not wish anybody to suspect that the young student had been responsible for anything that happened, even if it would have taken pressure off Persis herself; she had nothing but good will towards Gregori, and the wistful hope that the boy really did care for her, at least a little.

Doctor Ancala had arranged it with Alistair to have one shipment of his medication"the nightly bottle for the humidifier"arrive on the first of every month; today, there were still 24 bottles in the carton, in two individual boxes of 16 bottles each, in two layers; the bottom layer, for the seventeenth through the thirty-first of the month, with one extra, was still full, while the top layer was nearly half empty. Interwoven strips of cardboard kept each bottle in its designated position in the box, and each bottle’s place was numbered, for the sake of clarity. The next bottle to be used, then, was bottle #8. Due to there being a surplus of bottles every month, just in case of accidental breakage, Persis had taken to storing the spares under the kitchen sink on a shelf, nearby the colander and hard-boiled-egg slicer. She periodically threw out bottles that had passed their use-by dates, as printed on the cap.

Alistair had particularly approved of the way the bottles were shipped and arranged inside each carton, and had asked Persis to keep the current boxes of medication to be used each month to be kept on the kitchen counter, where he could see them. He regularly gave the bottles a looking over each night while inspecting the cleanliness of the apartment, though he did not pick up or examine individual bottles very often, without a special reason to do so.

The day after she had had her brainstorm, she had gone out in the afternoon to do some research at the local library, taking the bus to and from the institution. She knew none of the neighbors, so nobody especially noticed the comings and goings of the elderly woman, and even if they did, they would not know who she was; Alistair had told her not to go out in the daytime, but he would be unlikely to discover this small transgression.

With the help of the reference librarian, she had been able to select the right kind of poison for her plan. Persis’s basic plan was simple: one night, she would substitute the poison for Alistair’s normal dose of medication in the humidifier. Overnight, the poison would be released into the damp air of her husband’s bedroom, allowing him to inhale large amounts of toxins in his sleep until a fatal dose had been taken in. Even if the bottle that had contained the poison were detected afterward by the authorities, it would be assumed that the poison had been put in the bottle at the factory or some such place by some malefactor; who would suspect a kindly old lady? Not even she would have suspected herself, eight days earlier.

Well, with more research, Persis had learned about how to acquire the dangerous substance in a concentrated liquid form that, her research suggested, would at that dosage be strong enough to kill thirty people. There was nothing illegal about the compound’s contents, though. With persistence born of determination, Persis was able to obtain the poison by Friday. She was canny enough to avoid her name or appearance being connected with the purchases or preparation. She employed a number of aliases which she concocted from the names of characters from favorite novels she had enjoyed in her youth. She was so careful and so innocent looking that nobody who assisted her in this process had any suspicion of what she needed these things for. In fact, everyone involved was very kind and helpful to her. She wondered whether some of these people might be willing to make friends with her, after she had gained her liberty.

Persis knew that her husband was scrupulously careful to check the apartment every night: of course she knew that very well. She could hardly have left an odd glass bottle of poison in the apartment, for Alistair would surely find it and ask questions. Neither could she safely hide it in the hallway; or, still less safe, leave it with Gregori. She decided that the only safe container would be one of the brown bottles from the box of medication, obviously having first emptied it of medicine. It would look normal and in its right place to the casual observer, even to Alistair, given that he did not actually pick the bottle up. Even then, the difference was slight, and the weight was the same. The bottles all had airtight plastic caps that could be pushed or lifted off; they looked identical before and after they were opened.

Working over the kitchen sink, she used the same tin funnel she had used years ago for bottling homemade apple vinegar to pour the dangerous liquid into the little brown bottle, wearing the gloves she used for washing dishes. She spilled one drop into the sink, where it left a dark stain. Later, she scrubbed and soaped down the ceramic floor of the sink for more than twenty minutes to remove any trace of the mark. The funnel had to be discarded entirely, though she did not consider that much of a loss; she tossed it down the garbage chute down the hall, hidden in a paper bag.

She replaced the bottle of poison in the lower box’s spot labeled “#32,” in the bottom right hand corner of the box: the corner used for the extra or spare bottle. Since she personally handled the preparation of the humidifier every night, she could employ the special bottle’s contents at any time she deemed suitable. The actual medicine from that spare bottle had been poured down the sink, where it had left no stain at all. If she was careful, the poison would not cause any stain upon her future life of independence, either. Everything was left looking normal before Alistair came home that night.

She did not wish to rush into things; the next couple of nights were handled with a placid regularity. She kept her eye on her husband as he made his evening rounds, the first night, but he did not even lift the top box up to view the lower one containing the cornerful of poison. She began to breathe more easily. She bided her time, waiting, so as to arouse no suspicion at any time near the time the substitution was to be made. Everything went smoothly, except for the fact that Alistair announced on the twelfth of the month that he meant to retire at the end of the school semester, and become a homebody like her. She counted her blessings that she was already prepared to sidestep that eventuality; she need take no action now. She nodded her acceptance of the idea, and Alistair was satisfied that the he had broken the news well.

She decided that the 19^th would be the night. She considered simply putting the poisoned bottle into the “#19” slot ahead of time, but feared that her husband would be more likely to pay attention to the bottles that were coming up soon for consumption, so she left it in its corner, untouched; the bottle also was waiting for its moment to arrive. The empties started to accumulate in the bin by the doorway. Gregori would take the lot away to recycle on the first of next month.

It was the afternoon of the eighteenth that found Persis relaxing in happy contemplation in the hallway chair when she heard the unexpected sound of a key in the lock. Alistair threw his hat to the floor in a fury, pacing around the room unsteadily: his chairperson had essentially denied him the right to retire until the following year because another professor was transferring and the department would be an expert short. It had put Alistair out of temper.

Persis did her best to soothe her husband’s feelings, but unsurprisingly, she had little effect on his tantrum. Some of his best insults and expletives were used in his tirade; they were not applied to her, of course, but on the “dunderheaded fuzzdutty” who ran his department and the “underintelligent muttonmind” associate professor who was transferring to a state school at the end of the term. Still agitated and beginning to wheeze, he set down his coffee cup"Persis never drank the brew herself"and strode in as dignified a fashion as he could into his study, kicking the door shut and then cursing at the pain that resulted in his big toe.

There must not be any connection between Alistair’s loud"audible to the neighbors"outbursts of temper and his death, Persis thought. She would delay the evitable if need be, until he was in a more quiescent mood. She stirred her sweet orange pekoe and smiled to herself, recalling her first moment of inspiration eighteen days earlier.

Then, quite early in the evening, as she sat building castles in the sky, he was there before her, banging his hand on the table to get her attention. He shouted at her to prepare his humidifier at once; he was going to bed early. Meekly, she retrieved bottle #18 from its slot, barely glancing at the special spare in the corner, and mixed its contents into the humidifier’s tank, not daring to make a sound as Alistair grumbled and fumed to himself about idiots and bureaucracies. Wiping her old wooden spoon on her apron, Persis started the machine up, hearing its characteristic rumble, felt to make sure the moist air had commenced to emerge from the vents, and wish a quiet “Good night, dear,” she left Alistair to himself. She hoped he felt better soon, and had no further trouble breathing. There was no need to be cruel to him, after all.

She was particularly tired that evening; recently, she had tried to act meek and docile and bland, but inside she was both excited and nervous; she had been so all month, and it had affected her own sleep. Indeed, she had intentionally breathed particularly deeply at the vent of the machine, hoping it would help her calm down and get better rest. She could use a bit of additional rest, anyway: she would need her wits about her the day after tomorrow. When she heard Alistair’s deep breathing and the early wave of snores, she put her fears at rest and lay her head on her own pillow in her own bedroom across the hallway, drifting to sleep with a smile on her face, living various dreams of her own retirement, which was approaching swiftly.

*

Persis had a lovely, long sleep, uninterrupted by any sounds of traffic or of snoring. The sleeping medication must have been wonderfully effective.

Day #19 dawned with the crowing of the traffic and a vivid blue sky. Sunlight came through the curtains and lit upon Persis’s feet with gentle, comforting warmth. She knew that her time was coming soon, and she was prepared. Evidently, the night had worked wonders on Alistair, for he was not coughing this morning, thank goodness. All was in preparation for the evening’s activity, and by all signs, her plans were going to proceed on schedule. She had already invited Gregori to brunch with her tomorrow, so that she would have a witness with her when her tragedy was discovered. Alistair still had not noticed anything amiss, and he never would. The going had continued smoothly.

Today was a class day for Alistair, so as usual, he had made an early start. Persis imagined that he was going to give Professor Keaney a piece of his mind after class, but that would not concern her directly. She looked at the clock and was surprised at the lateness of the hour: it was half past ten. Goodness! Well, still, there was time to do all that was needed, and indeed there was nothing that was of any great importance to do, anyway. She would not make a mess today, so a superficial sprucing up was all that would be needed. She might even take the bus to the library again, after lunch, to take out a few novels. She would soon have more leisure time to read, after all, as well as more peace of mind.

Taking up her dust cloth and a spray bottle of water, she rapidly dusted the apartment’s many knickknacks and books with an ease born of long practice. Her mind was on her future, as it often was these days: escapism, that was the word. But in her case, she would achieve a literal escape. Tomorrow! Yes, it was coming that soon. She breathed a quiet “Hallelujah” to herself and to God, grateful again for her long delayed, but still-valid, reprieve from obligatory service that had hampered her life for years.

After dusting was through, she began to vacuum. Her vacuum cleaner was of the upright variety, with a long handle and a head for vacuuming carpets; the vacuum bag was hung parallel to the handle, under the power switch. She was slightly disoriented for a moment: surely the bag was quite full yesterday, wasn’t it? But now it’s empty, she verified, holding her hand against the vacuum bag as if were the belly of a pregnant woman. She sighed to herself: age did that to people, she knew: one day of her unvarying routine had bled into another until time was melted into a mass of generalities. She must have changed bags the previous afternoon.

Oh, well, one fewer thing to worry about, she thought, watching the characteristic puff of smoke rise off the bag when she switched the vacuum on. She was always careful to “vacuum out” of every room that had a carpet, so that there would be no unsightly footprints on the floor. It added a professional touch that was impressive and satisfying to view, she knew, nodding to herself with pride in her work as she shut off her bedroom light and moved on to the living room.

Arriving, she stared at the floor, surprised to notice that Alistair’s hat, hurled to the floor the previous night, was still there. In this weather, Persis thought, he should have put the hat on when he went to school, to avoid catching a cold. She grinned sleepily at herself, reflecting in ironic wonder that she must still care for the man, somewhere in her aging heart. She felt obscurely proud of herself for that.

Persis had had a peaceful rest the previous night, and indeed a longer rest than she ever usually got, close to eleven hours of sleep. She had awoken refreshed and full of vigor. Strange, then, that as she vacuumed the living room, she began to feel a strange torpor, a feeling of … well, wooziness was the word that came to mind. She was daydreaming again, but the images in her head started to change from enjoyable ones to rather frightening fantasies.

She felt as if the periphery of her sight was turning darker at the edges, seeming to drip with a dark maroon ichor; then, she wondered why such a bizarre thought had come to her. She leaned on the handle of her vacuum cleaner for a moment, for balance, and momentarily fancied that her grip was pressing through the handle as if it were made of soft cheese or clay. Or gelatin, in fact. Persis looked down at her hands and was startled to see that they appeared to be melting. Looking up in fright, she imagined that the walls and ceiling were sagging downwards towards her head, ready to drip goopily onto her hair. She told herself that these things were impossible: that she was still dreaming, not yet really awake.

Worried, she shut off the vacuum cleaner and made her way to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water, aware that her sense of balance was strangely unstable. There was a dark spot on the floor of the sink that she could see as she filled her glass at the tap. After it was full, she put the glass on the counter and wiped at the dark spot, running water on it to wash it away, but it would not dissolve. Instead, she felt as though she herself would be pulled by centrifugal force down into the drain.

Something was certainly wrong. She turned her head sharply to the place where the one remaining box of humidifier-medication sat; her vision blurred or smeared for a moment until she could focus on the checkerboard-shaped compartments inside it.

The last spot, the one marked “#32,” was empty. The bottle was not there.

She had not many more lucid moments left to her; she knew then that Alistair must have opened the bottle of poison at the sink at some time while she had been sleeping. He had gone to bed so early, she realized, that the medication had been used up in the middle of the night, and not wishing to disturb the bottles’ numbering, he had used the spare to refill his machine. A moment later, Persis made another realization: Alistair’s prescription bottle of “emergency” pills had been taken out, and was there on the counter next to a half filled glass of water. What happened last night?

Shambling as quickly as possible down the hallway to Alistair’s study, Persis plucked open the doorknob and entered. The door that connected the study to the master bedroom was still open; on the wall by the desk hung a monthly calendar, not visible from the hallway. The box representing the nineteenth of the month had been circled in red.

This all felt odd and unfamiliar to Persis, but she was starting to realize that she was not, in fact, imagining it. She moved forward toward the communicating door, feeling as if she were wading through waist-deep swamp water, becoming more curious than concerned.

The door opened on a view of the queen sized bed. She had to wave her hand before her face, for the unwholesome miasma of foul-smelling mist still lingered inside, resembling dark smoke more than it did vapor. Alistair had not gone to work, after all; he had remained in his bedroom, and would not now get up again. He was lying on his back, feet on the edge of the bed closest to the closed window, with his head near the middle of the bed.

Only a few inches away from Alistair’s head, Gregori’s face lay on the pillow, open eyes looking towards Alistair’s face. His right hand held Alistair’s. Gregori lay on his side, back to the bedroom door, feet near the right hand corner of the bed, the two men’s arms completing a capital letter A. The hand looked strange; in fact, Persis at first thought he was wearing a leather glove that didn’t entirely cover his hand. But there was a corresponding hand-print on Alistair’s face, the same color as Gregori’s illusory “glove.” Leaning closer, Persis saw that the dark stains were moist and slightly swollen, like raisins that had been soaked in brandy. Or, she thought, losing the thread of the occasion, like the back of a slug, somewhere in the Amazon, perhaps. She decided not to touch their skin.

She backed away from the foot of the bed, but her knees gave way and she sunk to the floor, unable to support her own weight, her arms grasping at the fitted sheet. Beside the bed, she could make out a burst vacuum bag on the bedside table"the full one she had evidently been using on the eighteenth"and a package of new, unused ones with its plastic container torn open. A halo of dust, like the ring of spores around a puffball mushroom, surrounded the damaged vacuum bag.

Under the lampshade was a white plastic bag, opened, marked with the trademark of the same out-of-town chemist’s shop where she had bought her own poison. A paper packet, which had been the white bag’s contents, had been ripped open, and traces of a burgundy-colored powder were still visible on the pouch’s edge; there was more powder like it on the floor.

I’ll have to vacuum that powder up, Persis thought drowsily, after a nice, little nap. And by tomorrow, I’ll be free....

Groggy, she moved to lie comfortably on her back along the foot of the bed, hands crossed at her waist. She rested her head on Alistair’s bare feet, her ankles upon Gregori’s ankles. In a curious moment of tactile imagination, she experienced a palpable moment of delicious anticipation; then, she gave a sigh of contentment and allowed herself to relax fully for the first time in decades. She contemplated the cracks on the ceiling, wondering if they contained some message or image for her. She was happy for Gregori, though it was a pity that he had not completed his degree; Persis mused that, after all, and despite some unexpected occurrences, things had worked out well.

She breathed more deeply, letting sleep fill her lungs. A change is as good as a rest, she thought, drifting into a peaceful dream, letting her eyes go out of focus as a smile formed on her lips. She released another breath of satisfaction and floated back to her tropical island. The toucans called and the sunset’s light, red as wine, filtered through the canopy as the rain forest’s mist settled on the three figures, all of them gratified at having retired early.

Persis let her eyes close, relishing the fantasy. It was good to have a break from the usual dreary routine. It really was good.

Author's Note

I'd love for people to read both versions and make comments on the two. Which is more effective? I know this one is shorter and may be 'punchier,' but I like the further complexity of the other version too.