By Keith J. Powell
Flies zipped around the house like a sour mood. Always there and gone like a suspicion that couldn’t quite be squashed.
“There’s something dead in this house,” he said.
“It’s your imagination,” she said.
He clapped a fly out of the air. Its broken body landed between them. “Is that my imagination? Is that terrible smell my imagination?”
She sighed and sipped her wine. “I’m not having this argument again.”
He pushed his face against the plaster wall, trying to sniff out the phantom corpse. She refilled her glass and turned on the TV—a dramedy about young socialites he couldn’t stomach.
“It’s been getting worse for weeks,” he said. “A mouse or a squirrel must have died in the walls.”
“If something died in the walls weeks ago, you wouldn’t still be smelling it,” she said.
“Maybe it took a long time to die,” he said.
“That’s not how decaying works,” she said.
“Oh, you just know everything,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, and sipped her wine.
He made a retching sound and spat on the hardwood. “A fly flew in my mouth.” He spat again. “These goddamn flies. I’m going insane.” He stomped out of the room and returned a short moment later, bouncing the handle of a claw hammer against his palm.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
He pointed the hammer at her like a pistol. “I’m going to knock holes in every wall in this house until I find whatever it is that died.”
“Do not put holes in my walls.”
“I’ve gotta find the problem.”
She rolled her eyes. He swung the hammer low like a bowling ball, burying its head in the wall with a dull thud. He lay flat on his stomach and tried peering into the ragged hole.
“Tell you what, after I find it, whatever it is, we’ll take a trip. We’ll open all the windows and take a long weekend away to let things air out. When we get back, things will be good as new. What do you say?”
She shrugged and returned her attention to her show. He swung the hammer at a new spot and repeated his inspection.
“We could go up to the lake,” he said. “Get a cabin on the water?”
Thud.
“Maybe drive down south and do some hiking?”
She placed a hand over her wine to block the grey plaster particles floating in the air. “How about a nice hotel?” she offered.
Thud. “Or that. I guess.”
“There’s a nice one downtown overlooking the river,” she said.
“Out of curiosity, how is a hotel overlooking a river better than a cabin on a lake?”
“The rooms have jet tubs for one.”
Thud. “The cabin has a hot tub.”
“Does the cabin have a spa? Because the hotel has a spa. And room service.”
“Oh, she wants room service now.” Thud.
“I like room service,” she said.
Thud. “Hey,” he said, setting the hammer down. “I see something.”
“You can have them bring up a bottle of cold champagne right to your room.”
“Is that a feather? Are these bird bones?”
“They’ll even bring you chocolate strawberries.”
“I think it was a dove. I can still see some of the white feathers. But I don’t understand…”
“Six delicious strawberries lined up just so on a silver tray.”
He stopped and pushed himself up on his knees. He dusted pulverized plaster from his hands and slumped with his back against the meager opening, revealing the secret dead thing inside. He tapped the hammer against his thigh.
“You sure know a lot about this hotel,” he said.
The room darkened under a black veil of flies.
* * *
Keith J. Powell is a writer and editor based in Ohio. He is co-founder and managing editor of Your Impossible Voice and the author of the flash fiction chapbook Sweet Nothings Are a Diary If You Know How to Read Them (ELJ Editions). Visit keithjpowell.com for more.