“Metamorphosis II”

 

“Laura, come to bed! What are you doing out there?”

 

Laura was doing nothing. Just drinking tea and looking out the

window, humming to herself.

 

She had lost weight, grown taciturn, seemed sexless. Harold,

confused, was getting on her last nerve.

 

She came into the bedroom. Harold, bald and boring, glared at her.

 

“What is wrong with you? Didn’t you hear me?”

 

Oh yes, thought Laura. Thirty years of marriage doesn’t stop up your

ears, just your mouth. And your heart.

 

Laura opened the closet to hang up her robe. Inside, on a hanger, was

a giant bat, its dull black wings wrapped around itself, hanging

upside down. Laura shoved it aside, looking for a hanger for her

robe. She got into bed and turned off the light.

 

 

The police looked at the carnage on the bed. Blood everywhere, a real

massacre. Something was wrong, damned if they could figure it out.

The wife, mute, had to be in shock. Weird batty woman.

 

Laura, her gown bloody, drinking tea, looked out the window. Under

the tree was a big dark man, standing with his arms wrapped around his

chest. He looked up and nodded.

 

Laura smiled back and winked.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2007-2016

 

Tags: "Metamorphosis II", batty fiction, fiction, transformation