Paul – he’s in the bathroom – been there for a couple of days with a packed gun set on top of a silver platter, plates of food all over the tile floor, garbage and rotting leftovers in the bathtub and he’s writing a letter.

“Dear?” Paul’s wife says through the door.

“Yes, dear…,” Paul says while writing with a pencil; another number two tucked behind his left ear.

“It’s time for dinner, dear,” the wife says. “You’ve been there long enough, haven’t you?” the wife prods from a voicebox powered by a nasal twang.

“Just a minute dear.”

Big Band music plays through a small radio, intermittent static with hidden voices speaking in Spanish. The scene accented with a cursed love song.

“What are you doing in there, Paul?”

“Just a minute, dear.”

Paul smiles, puts the pencil down and reads his letter. He erases a mistake. An overindulgent use of the word “and” it’s crossed through. And then another one gets crossed out. He writes a little more just to make it perfect. When he’s done, he folds the letter, slips it into an envelope and slides it into the inside pocket of a gray sports coat. He unfurls a plastic covering, cuts pieces of it. Pieces of the plastic tarp are taped to the floor, the ceiling…[etc...]

“Your food is getting cold, dear,” the woman mews.

“Just a minute, dear,” Paul repeats with a twist of agitation.

This Paul, this man who’s without a shirt, nothing but scraps of man’s existence littering the bathroom he shares with his wife, he stands in front of the mirror, checks each side of his face clenching his jaw as he does it. Paul picks up a comb and parts his hair one way and then the other. The radio’s battery is dying so the transmission goes in and out. Maybe he should change it. Maybe he should just let it go. So he smacks this radio, curses at it.

“What’s going on in there?” says the wife.

“Just a minute, dear!”

He caresses the cold metal handle of the gun, wipes a piece of tomatoe from the barrel, puts the business end into his mouth.

“Paul!”

“Jush a MINU’, deah”

bang, bang

paul

————————————————–

paul’s brain

One slap of the shovel to scrape me from the floor. Woo hoo!

One solid brush against the blood drip dripping onto the floor. Woo hoo!

One squirt, squirt from the disinfectant! and they are scraping me from the mess. Scraping me.

It’s so good to be free. Woo hoo!

———————————————-

paul’s ghost

When are we sitting up again? My brain is gone. My body is gone. Horror is everywhere…it’s falling from the ceiling in big red clumps, draining into the bathtub and clogging the pipes.