Honey, I'm home...

Harry was sitting on a stool in his front room, facing the window,
looking out at the night, watching the sodium lights and car headlights
trying to resist the onslaught of darkness. The streets below were
busy, night time people going about their night time lives. He thought
briefly about them, where they were going, what they were doing. He was
a night time person himself, working nights at the casino, sleeping
through most of the daylight hours. He wasn't going to work tonight
though. He normally slept all day, but he hadn't slept at all
today.

He stared for an age, not crying, certainly not laughing. His face was
blank. He hadn't quite felt himself lately, he thought to himself, then
chuckled a little.
'Not been feeling myself lately,' he said to himself, 'I wonder why.'
He chuckled again, but without humour. He lit up a cigarette, and
sucked on it deeply. He saw his reflection in the window, not
recognising himself for a second. He stared at himself, stared as he
tipped his head back and blew smoke towards his reflection, half
expecting his image to disappear, but it didn't.

He always went to the gym after work, always. He always thought that
Susan resented him going, resented him not coming straight home after
his long night so she could see him for breakfast before she went to
work. He had picked up the flowers at the 24 hour garage near the
casino, just after he decided to surprise her by coming straight home.
He also picked up some eggs and bacon and fresh orange juice. Her
birthday was only a week away, and as he drove home he had imagined the
look on her face as he woke her up with breakfast in bed.

The look he actually saw on her face when he came in the house was
somewhat different. He opened the door to the living room and found her
lying on the floor. Naked. At least, he assumed she was naked, but he
couldn't see all of her as someone was lying on top of her. Someone who
definitely was naked. His best friend Bobby, he realised. His ex-best
friend, he chuckled again.

She had met his gaze, and it was more a look of surprise that he saw.
Shock, even, he might have said. The look of someone who had certainly
not expected today to be the day he decided to skip the gym and come
home early.

He had stared at them for a few seconds, a minute, or was it a
lifetime, and they had stared back at him. It was apparent that not one
of them had been in this situation before; no one seemed quite sure how
to react. Harry had turned away and had slowly walked down to the
bedroom, eyes glazed. He dropped the shopping bag as he walked, but he
didn't hear the noise as it hit the floor. He had sat on the bed and
had stared into space, holding his head in his hands, pressing on the
sides as if to contain the pressure within.

He took another long drag on the cigarette. He expelled the smoke,
momentarily blurring his image in the window. He wished now he had
acted differently, how many times he had watched it through in his
mind, like a grainy home video. Now, without the pressure of the moment
in which to act, he could clearly see what he should have done.

He visualised himself beating up Bobby, punching the bastard till his
face bled, then throwing him out into the street without his clothes,
his humiliation complete, realising what a big mistake he had made,
trying to put one over on old Harry. He would have had plenty of time
to realise that it was he, not Harry, who had been the fool in this
situation.

Then he would have then turned on her. Not physically, he would never,
could never hit her, but he would have told her what a slut she was,
how she would rot in hell, and then he would have thrown her out, naked
as well. She would have begged him to let her in, pleaded with him,
told him how she loved him, how he was more of a man than Bobby ever
was, how it was Harry that she really loved and on and on, even with
all the neighbours looking on. He would have let her bawl and squeal
for an hour, then he would have walked out, suitcase in hand, got in
his car and never looked back, except once in the rear view mirror to
see her hunched on the front lawn, head in her hands, realising the
mistake she had made in losing such a fine man.

That's what he should have done, that would have been so fine. That he
could have been proud of.

But he stopped dreaming, and came back to reality, the reality where he
hadn't done these things. He had taken the easy option, the cowardly
option. He hadn't been able to bring himself to say a word to either of
them. He hadn't been able to shout or scream or swear or do any of a
thousand other things which would have properly expressed his
rage.

He thought that there were often times when a course of action came so
clearly to him after an event. If only he could have thought this
clearly at the time or other times when he needed to the most, but
unfortunately, he thought, that was just the way of things.

He stubbed out his cigarette, then immediately lit another one, then
put the packet down on the table next to his gun. He looked at the gun,
deciding whether he should put it back in his bedside cabinet, or throw
it away. Should he get into his car and leave, or should he stay here.
He decided he should leave; the dead people in the living room would
start to smell soon.