home authors guest shorts graphical shorts

AcmeShorts

"You've got to stop using sex to express aggression," she said, for what must have been the ten thousandth time in their seventeen years of marriage.

His jaw tightened; his nostrils flared. But he stared ahead in stony silence. Of all the many petty indignities of his daily life, none irked him more than his wife's armchair psychoanalyses -- the shrill, steady nattering of a mind glutted on Oprah Winfrey and bad women's magazines and self-help books and nitwit Continuing Education classes. Had he burnt the breakfast toast? Yes he had, and make no mistake, this wasn't merely a matter of absent-mindedness: this was a passive-aggressive gesture, his wife would announce with a triumphant cluck of lip against lip. If he was cut off by a taxi in rush-hour traffic, and and he leaned on his horn...there she was again, lecturing him about his anger, his suppressed longings for father-love, his estrangement from his true feelings. Feelings? Feelings? He had been FEELING just fine, thank you, until they were nearly side-swiped by some asshole in a turban -- until the dumpy little turnip seated beside him had hissed some third-rate Dr. Phil-ism through those hideous lipstick-smudged teeth!

"You've got to stop using sex to express aggression," she said again, but he ignored her, and continued sawing. Sawing clean through the trapezius of their next door neighbor Maureen Greenfeld, who not a half-hour earlier he had bludgeoned about the temples with a hedge trimmer, whose body was splayed atop a green tarpaulin on the kitchen floor, and whose freshly-scalped skull, gleaming in the half light like a giant egg, he would, ten minutes hence, mount, and, amid a volley of oaths -- "Take it, cunt!...Take it all!...Awww, that's the way you like it!" -- firmly, but not untenderly, fuck.

Date Written: March 10, 2004
Author: Craig Lewis
Average Vote: 3.8571

Comments:
03/16/2004 John Slocum (5): What's going on here is very clear, no inside jokes/personal references (I hope). Nicely wrought with unexpected O'Henrian ending. Great visuals. Jolly well done. Wondering why there's no wine in the short.
03/16/2004 qualcomm (4): solid.
03/16/2004 Benny Maniacs (3): Garnered neither tears nor laughter from this commenter, but I thought you were onto something there before he turned American Psycho.
03/16/2004 Will Disney: I know she's usually wrong and stuff, but maybe his wife is right about this one.
03/16/2004 Jon Matza (3): Say, I'm agreeing w/maniacs a lot lately! Liked this better prior to Greenfeld's entrance. 3 1/2, will make the 1/2 up next time round.
03/16/2004 scoop (4): The ultra-violence at the end kinda rooooined it for me too. But I thought the detailed description of the beleagured huisband and his domestic ennui stands on its own.
05/24/2004 TheBuyer (4): here's your half added to my three and a half, Matza
08/12/2004 Mr. Pony (4): Aw, MAN!