Infidelity Is Fatal
A short story
With a twist
By
Jude Kyrie

Henry knew she was cheating on him.
No specific proof but he got that bitter feeling in his gut,
you know the kind that's always right.
Little things bothered him.
Like Meg not getting home until 6:45 when she finished work at 5 pm.
What was happening with the missing hour
that she should have been home.
Probably ******* some lover somewhere.
She always said oh I called in at the Mall
or ran into Betty her best friend
and stopped at Louie's Bar
for a glass of chablis.

The other thing was the phone calls.
She would put the phone down as soon as he came in the room.
Redial gave no answer at all but that was just a signal
he had read about lovers morse code
Let it ring three times to answer
or wait for the second and third call.
Yes for sure she was ******* someone.

No wonder Meg was stunning at thirty-five
her figure was great she spoke softly and was kind.
The first to offer her help to any worthy cause.
Decorated the church at Christmas and Easter.
She was a beautiful woman.
And some ***** was trying to take her away from him.

The final straw was the trip to LA she said she had to go there
for a meeting but LA was not in her territory.
Henry forbade her to go
but she got angry for the first time in twelve years of marriage
and told him to mind his own ******* business.
Jesus, she never swore.
For sure her lover would be with her
making a patsy of Henry with
Meg moaning ******* in the hotel bed

Then the doozy
he found the gold cufflinks with a small diamond in.|
He knew they were not for him
he never wore cufflinks in his life except on his wedding day.
He did not even own a shirt with a folded french cuff.
Yep, it was a gift for lover boy.

The phone rang it was seven o'clock it was Meg.
Hi Honey, I am going to be really late
I was at the mall and met the Bryants
we are going for a drink want to join us.

He had herNo I am meeting up with David
Evans for a poker game I will be late too he lied.
He knew for certain she was with lover boy at some ****** hotel
He probably had her down to her Bra and ******* right now.
The rage screamed in henry's chest.

The phone rang again
It was actually David Evans his best buddy.
He told him the full story about Meg
and her lover leaving out no detail
David felt he was losing it
Look, Henry.
Megs loves you she's as straight as an arrow,
You are just worrying about nothing.
Meg would never ever cheat on you buddy.
Then he told him about the cuff links
They were hidden in her ***** draw.
He had found them in his search for evidence.
He said silly they are probably a Christmas present for you.
No way, said Henry.
No way. I don't use Cufflinks.

David was worried Henry sounded like he had lost the plot
Look, Henry, I am coming over let's set up a game of pool
Get your good scotch out Buddy.

Henry put the receiver in its cradle|>
Then he went to the desk in his Den
in the locked drawer he pulled out a smith and wesson.45
And slid in in his belt.
It took him three hotels to find her
Her BMW that he bought her
was parked in the back of the carpark
Meg was in it as was a man was in the passenger seat.
He crept closer it Sam Bryant
Megs best friends husband

He was a homely fat **** with a big gut.
What the **** could she see in that loser?

He must have a **** like a ******* horse thought Henry.
But he tapped on the window with his gun
Meg saw him a shocked look on her face Henry what are you doing?.
Don't pretend you don't know you cheating ***** he yelled.
Put the gun down Henry for god's sake.
They ran away to the hotel bar and henry followed them in
He caught up to them and pulled his gun out pointing it a Sam's head
What the **** do you cheat on me with this fat ***** for?
I had a dog that was not as ugly as him
and I shaved its ***
and made it walk backward cried, Henry.
What do you mean said, Meg?
You think Sam and Me are having an affair, Henry?
She almost laughed.
But she was cool really cool.
It"s obvious, the ******* cufflinks.|
They are for you at Christmas.
you been in my drawers again Henry?

Well, Sam, you get ready to pay for your sins he said.
he lifted the gun into sam's face.
A woman screamed from the door
Henry, please don't hurt my husband, we got kids.
It was Betty sams wife.

I told you we were going for drinks henry said Meg
Put the gun down.
I even asked you to join us remember?

The door opened again two policemen with revolvers drawn
pointing at henry one shouted drop the weapon NOW!
Henry turned to face them
his gun pointed in their direction.
Then six shots from the police revolvers
blasted Henry into eternity.
He lay dead upon the floor.
mEg knelt by his body weeping.

The funeral went by quietly
only a few people attended.
Henry was regarded a bad news in this town.

It turned out the gun in Henry's hand
could not have fired anyway.
The firing pin was removed

A month later

The gossip column in the local rag had a story

Meg Williams and David Evans
Are pleased to announce their marriage
At the St Jude’s Church of Salvation.
Ms.Williams is an investment adviser
and widow of Henry Williams.
The wedding is on Saturday the 9th of February
The couple will be honeymooning in LA
Where the bride said they shared
their first romantic moments together

The only hole in Meg's story was fixed later.
She placed the shirt with french cuffs in her closet.
Wrapped in pretty Christmas paper with a note.
To Henry with all my love.
Meg

It was not needed
But God knows who Henry had blabbed
the cuff links story too.
Better to be safe than sorry
Smiled Meg
As she dropped the firing pin
of a Smith and Wesson .45 revolver
Into the drain twenty miles from her home.

The End

J.R. said the man in the helmet said, “Goodbye, my friend,” before shooting his father in the chest. His body sank, but the man shot him twice more, in the head and cheeks. The children said the three men were laughing as they left.*
-Daniel Berehulak, They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals, New York Times

Manila, goodnight.
The world is watching you slowly die.
Tattered truths & losing sense of life
captivate your battered night. Mud hurls blood
streets batted with horror & blabbed
anonymous spirits ghostlier than ever.

(Even ghostlier than your Martial Law days)

Manila, tranquilize yourself.

Your rest will be disturbed by scourged souls, thunderous cracks of guns,
bullets hitting flesh, motorcycle tandem arrests,
people’s holy shouts shunning shibboleth sounding death.

Hear them not. Sleep well.

Maggots festering wound. Manila,
on your knees, worms stich your broken nerves
healing gunshot wounds with peace.

Your night will be a train of madness
shattered by lies through morbid holes in skulls
& confessions in cardboard signs.

(Justice today is served cold, so cold)

& everything from that day on is simply to be known
as a cold just.

Truth decays. Life smolders, vanishing.

Your nights will be unthreaded from memories
for no one dares to look back to twisted arms clenched
by plastic strips, head bowing to ground (instead of ground
bowing to head), ground kissing the body naked swarmed
either by grease or blood, the body breaking gossips
among gossipers & gossamer among spiders.

Weep not, dead men tell no fiction.
Their bodies are the shocking truth, forsaken
shocking headlines hissing morning papers
peppered with mint or lies.

Manila, goodnight for your night will be remembered
through vigilant myths & nothing more.

Often cold bodies, freezing voices from limbo,
can’t speak nor bothered the living.

Again, Manila, in your arms, dead men tell no tales.

The killing spree of fragmented morality,
mortality, fatality, vanity, sanity, insanity, apathy.

Manila, do not move. You are now sedated with fear,
stronger than cooked methamphetamine of crooked realities,
no less than a drug making your anxious, bothered
in the darker & dimmer night
in dimmer  & darker disaster.

Manila, walk with your graffiti walls.
Your gutters will be banks of blood. Daylight traffic
will erase your night’s unwelcoming sphere. Last night
persists as tiny figment of imaginings photographed
& again, nothing more.

Everything will pass like hyacinths of Pasig River.

Everything will pass like one’s eternal passing.

Everything will pass like a chilling December wind.

Everything will pass either a typhoon or a butterfly fluttering.

Manila, goodnight. I am afraid they will ****** you
in your sleep. I am afraid that everything will just pass
like your breath losing hold of your lungs then your heart.

I am afraid that your death, my dear Manila,
will just be a neighbourhood rumour passing
& everything turns into a fiasco of a madman who believes
that he is a messiah, was he a messiah or never he will be a messiah.

Manila goodnight, I will watch you in your sleep. Your sleep
will be a thousand fold peace. No more of your sons or daughters
will be killed at least not in my memory.

Manila, here comes the night. Sleep,
sleep holy in the hidden lair of my mind. Your
catacomb will be wreathed by flowers & tears.
Incense will be fragrant burning bones. Your life,
your tired life will be a gentle ebbing of time
like your Bay’s sunset beauty, like your lively street people
like your once known heritage, your life
in the busy daybreak of your kindred sons.

Goodnight, my dear Manila.

some barber once told me
i was too fat for my own good
and little me was heartbroken
his harsh words weren't understood

because i was okay when i looked in the mirror
and mom and dad loved me so
but when the barber blabbed on and on
i knew the chubby arms and legs had to go

and so i felt bad for years
until one day i suddenly thought:
i don't even go to that barber's barber shop!
i don't need to worry about the things i'm not!

Hurtful actions are acted everywhere
People commit them, they don't care
Thinking they're right in every way
Doing what they doing just isn't the same
They host campaigns to overrun us
They advertise just to ruin us
How can one live in a world of people that's not free
Then they expect the nation to live together in peace

In a country, there are groups
Of people mixed together like soup
They discriminate, they shame
They make everyone feel the same
Separation between skin tones
Determination above them all
All they did was for peace and success to win
Sadly they weren't accepted and instead were rejected

I would always FIGHT for peace
NEVER would I let go of my dream
I've learnt to be fierce
Find a hole and pierce
The walls that'd soon come down
The mighty parliament would drown
The ruling would never fight, they don't have the time
Many would rejoice and give, others make choices a dream

I would rather love in a nation with peace
At least, everyday I would be able to live
With different, equal people of another race
Where we'd all be happy, all at the same place
Yes I'd rather be an equal
I'd rather not be an official
Everyday is a brand new day with many possibilities
Everyone should try and achieve the impossibility

I look at the world
I see they're hurt
From all the fighting
And all the slaying
All they do is peach their sermons
On how peace should be theirs
Yet no-one had the courage to make a change
They'd rather DIE than be an honest saint

Peace has not been added
Peace had not been blabbed

FIGHTS are common
Fights are ruining

People are afraid
People can change

Parties rule hard
Parties separate us

Actions are physical
Actions hurt people

I think I can be the changing agent
I know I can be the one who shapes the world to perfection

It was about a day and every day
The silence not reaching his ears
The voice not reaching her tongue,

Not the silence of unspoken, but of paradox
Not the vocals of vowels, but few words of truth.

The Moon was often bright,
His sea always shiny,
The beach at the end muddy,
The clouds near him in a hurry,
As if to not hide, Sea to his Moon.

A cheerful morning with chirping birds
Hosted a Mister and his Missie,
She shimmered as if an heiress of upper lands
He looked content as if the master of time,
She laughed and laughed as to chorus song of birds
He chuckled often, whenever laughter nuzzle.
And the magic of eyes was also present,
She looked at him with her forgotten existence
He looked at her as if his most fragile possession.
She blabbed and blabbed and said nothing,
He spoke on occasion few words of Solace.

On his dimmest days, Sea would often ask as if scared "will you come tomorrow", gazing hopefully
And the Moon would speak as if drunk "for sure". Seeming, weary.

-Ocean

Just when the ****** I found on your bedroom floor,
was finally clarifying our relationship as casual and nothing more,
you went and blabbed about your nan.
I wish you'd stop baring random bits of your soul,
when this has been nothing but a *******,
and quit crossing the line I keep drawing in the sand.

I couldn’t remember what had kept me here in the first place. Trying to look back that far nearly snaps my neck. Your face no longer holds an image in my brain, but I remember your words. They painted a picture themselves.

“Smoking hinders your sensibility. Sight, smell, taste, touch, even your ability to feel. Trying to smell your dinner sometimes strains my head. Not because it is bad, but because cigarettes are just so **** good.”

I stared at the overflowing ashtray and grief engulfed me as if I were staring into an uprooted cemetery. With analyzing every crinkled **** smoked down to its perimeter–except for one that was half smoked, and leaving a cigarette incomplete was uncommon for you, so this was undoubtedly the first and last one you didn’t get to finish–I imagined this to be an accurate illustration of what your lungs must’ve looked like when you last sat in that shabby recliner you considered your throne. You held your words with grace and pride when you coupled them with a smoke, and if my memory serves me right, I don’t believe you spoke all at when you didn’t. The majority of the time, you would push your throne closer and closer to the television like someone was going to take it away from you. Who knew one day you would be right.

I picked up the ***** half-cigarette from the tray and blew off the relic it wore like it was a dusty picture frame found in an attic. Nothing about it called to me, at least not the way you pretended it did.

“I need my smokes! It’s morning. I can’t start my day without one.”
“Some ***** at work blabbed about me taking smoke breaks and nearly got me suspended.”

When you developed a cough, they began calling to you in a different way.
“If I stop now, then all this would be for nothing.”
“It’s been proven that people become sicker when they quit.”

When you would try to quit:
“You might want to leave me alone for a week, I’m going to be grumpy until I get over the first phase.”

When you would quit quitting:
“You’re stressing me out, I need one!”

These statements have played in my head in incessant unison, and with forgetting the sound of your voice, they have taken the sound of mine. I keep the conversation going to prevent the silence from driving me mad.

Holding the tip of the cigarette against my lips, I pretended I was kissing you, and for a moment, I swear, I tasted you. You tasted terrible.
I lit it and rid myself of the only thing you left behind, for your sake
(to finish what you started)
and mine.