It started where it ended, amongst the shopping bags in the kitchen. And it ended where it started; with me on the floor, if not convulsing, then certainly twitching.
She had come home that evening with the usual stuff that ladies buy; so I chose not to ask such questions as "what" or "why".
'Look what I've bought,' she said, flicking through a glossy book of duplicated images. 'You know the game, you've got to spot the difference.'
I nodded my head with obvious indifference.
And so there we stood, with her picture book of mirrored images; crowd scenes, arrangements of flowers and mixed fruit. There was assorted landscapes and animals; cute.
With her finger pointing from page to page, she continued.
'That one's missing and that one's turned from brown to beige,' she thumbed through every scene, again and again.
'What do you think of this book I've bought?' she asked in a disarming manner.
"Not a lot" was my hidden thought, as I suggested, 'we'd be better off with a twelve month planner.'
She gave me a look as cold as winter, that was more of a glare than a glance; as I muttered some incoherent defensive words, as if in a hypnotic trance.
'You've gotta try harder,' she candidly concluded, as she passed me the book; which I took.
I flicked through the glossy pages of duplicated images, without stopping, as I stood next to her shopping. But I could sense her growing tension and feel the tightening knot of my apprehension. Then I looked up and I knew I was fucked!
From a hook on the wall she had grabbed a meat tenderising mallet and the moisture immediately drained from the roof of my mouth, from my palate.
'I'm not fucking blind to your indifference!' she shouted in my face, 'now spot the fucking difference!'
So there I stood, not even muttering, just some "umms" and "arghs" and some fucking stuttering. With her eyes close to bulging and her face strawberry red, she hammered the mallet into the fore of my head.
And there I staggered, still holding her picture book of duplicated images; blood in full flow down my face, with the whole of the cosmos spinning in my space. Then I dropped the book, her picture book, and felt the full force of her withering look.
'They've altered the pictures from page to page,' I managed to say. 'What was brown has turned to beige.'
'Honey,' she said, with a placating attitude, 'what's different about me today?'
I felt no sense of gratitude.
With my blurred vision and my ears ringing, but mayhap a new beginning... 'Is it your hair?'
Crunch went that fucking mallet; my blood and teeth swirled round my palate. And there I was, on the floor, next to the glistening pins of her stilettos.
'New shoes?' I gargled.
'Are you fucking dippy?' she screamed down at me, 'can't you see I'm wearing new fucking lippy!'
Crunch went that bitch of a mallet, snap went my fucking palate.
'You've gotta pay more attention,' she said, 'and cut out the fucking indifference, when I wanna play spot the difference.'
Then between my legs went the heel of her stiletto and my blood curdling scream was a pitch higher than falsetto.
I crawled over her picture book of mirrored images, of mixed fruit and animals; cute. And what was once a bright orange carrot was now soaked to claret. Whoosh and crunch went that fucking mallet.
I lay there, in a pool of my own blood, there in our kitchen and if I wasn't convulsing then I was certainly twitching.
