Every Day Is Too Long
2003-03-04 - 12:42 p.m.

“Every day is too long, if you ask me.” Said Rita.

Carl just snorted. All Rita ever did these days was whine and complain.

“Really, Carl,” she continued, “if everything ended tomorrow, I don’t think I’d mind much. It would have to be better than living in this craphole hut in these danged backwoods.”

Carl took another swig of his Bud and tried to ignore her. It grew easier to ignore her

every rant. He wished she would just leave. He knew she wanted to. He had seen letters from some guy named Larry, probably some new lover. It would be the fourth one this year, by his count. He could have her. She was little more than a common whore. He took another swig. His beer was warming.

Rita finished up her tirade and walked inside the trailer, the door slamming behind her.

Carl stared out at the trees nearby, and listened as the crickets and cicadas began their nighttime symphony. This was such beautiful land. This trailer was piece of junk, but he could deal with it. Everything would be perfect if it weren’t for Rita. Why he didn’t leave, he couldn’t say. It was probably some moral vestige of his Puritanical upbringing. He let out a belch, crushed his can beneath his heel, and walked into the trailer.

He could hear Rita crying. She did this every night she was home. It seemed to go on for hours, starting with quiet weeping and usually ending in pseudo-hysterical wails. Try as he might, Carl couldn’t make himself feel bad. He used to feel bad, long ago, but the years wore on and the days wore away his humanity like water on limestone. He was a smooth cavern now.

He walked over to the tattered green recliner and sunk into it, cursing the broken spring that jabbed and prodded him as he tried to adjust his body to compensate for it. The TV flipped on, seemingly autonomously, the action of using the remote being as close to instinct as anything Carl did.

The screen flickered on, showcasing a man and a woman on the front porch of a trailer. The woman was complaining, and the man was doing his best to ignore it. He took a swig of beer. Carl took a cue from him and walked to the kitchen to get a beer of his own.

He walked back in and sat back down. The scene had switched. Now the woman was standing inside, a smoking gun in her hand and a headless body on the floor.

Carl smiled grimly, and Rita loaded her gun.