Shoe Struck

Leon Trotsky had been killed by an ice pick to the brain. This was
the first conscious thought in Dick's mind when he came around at the
hospital. Funny really, because Dick was only in the hospital courtesy
of a lady's shoe. A size 5 with a wickedly sharp heel.
Dick was collecting Nell, his little girl, from her Day Care class
when it occurred. His former wife stepped up behind Dick, through the
restraining order, and punctured the top of his head with that very
pointy heel. Right there in the town's main car park, in broad
daylight.
It would be 2 years ago to the exact day. Was that why Dick's mind was
regurgitating these unpleasant memories? It was now eighteen months
since Jane was incarcerated at the County farm for nut jobs. The shrink
at her trial had said Jane couldn't be treated as a criminal. She was
too unstable. No shit, Sherlock! No one knew the half of it?
Marriage to that crazy bitch had almost turned Dick into a walking,
talking loon. Only now had he reached the point where he no longer saw
Jane's reflection in shop windows, or staring at him from the back of a
passing vehicle.
Nell was staying with his sister until tomorrow. Luckily those two
were the best of friends. Not for the first time did Dick give silent
thanks for having such a supportive sister; Christine had been a font
of good advice both during the hell of the marriage, and now that Dick
was on his own with Nell.
Dick decided that he was hungry. He crossed the kitchen and opened a
cupboard. And froze. The labels on every tin stared back at him from
the gloom inside. Every tin was perfectly aligned, like rows of
soldiers on parade, awaiting his inspection. Dick never arranged the
tins this way: he was not that anal. He felt the surge of bile in his
stomach, as the old fear rose up inside him. Pat, his cleaning lady,
never touched the contents of this cupboard; hell, it was all she could
do to wash the floor! And Nell certainly couldn't reach this shelf,
even if she tried. No one else came in here that Dick could think
of.
A part of his mind knew what this reminded him of: the bathroom towel
episode. One of Jane's big issues when they were married was the towels
in the bathroom. They had to be perfectly aligned with both lengths
matching and equally centered on the towel rail. He once said,
jokingly, that he'd have to keep a tape measure in the John, so that he
could check he'd returned the towels to their correct location! That
was in the early days? when Dick could still joke about stuff.
Whirling around, Dick expected to see that old size 5, coming crashing
down again. Only the silence of the house greeted him; as loud as it
always was when Nell was not home.
Dick found he could only move with great effort. All his muscles felt
tight as he stepped back into the living room. He wanted to leave, to
escape out into the street. If he were among people he would feel
safer. But then what? Call the Cops and tell them, Officer, I think my
ex-wife has escaped from the funny farm! I think that she's come back
to stalk me, and she's inside my own house at this very minute. Yeah,
right. I don't think so?
From the corner of the room the TV set stared at him with its big
Cyclops eye. Reaching for the remote, Dick flicked it on with a shaky
hand. Turning to the local news channel, he raised the volume.
Larry, the oily News presenter, was talking about a big fire burning
somewhere. But turning to local news now, Larry announced that 3
patients were missing from a local institution that housed mentally
unstable individuals. Larry's worried expression turned lighter as he
assured his audience that these three individuals - two men and one
woman - presented no danger to the public. Their apprehension was
apparently imminent. Time now for the local weather, said Larry, and
the camera switched to the Weather girl in her obligatory mini skirt.
Today, however, her long legs held no attraction for Dick.
He'd already launched himself into the hallway, fighting the surge of
panic that filled him. The thing that stopped Dick in his tracks was
the sound of running water from the half-open bathroom door at the top
of the stairs. This was too horrible for Dick's mind to fully digest.
He felt cold. His skin was covered in goose bumps and his tongue was
stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Dick forced his shaking legs up the stairs. Some part of him must have
pushed the bathroom door all the way open, because now he was standing
inside, looking into a nightmare.
A bone-thin creature with close-cropped hair was standing naked in his
tub. It was trying to remove the hairs on one stick-like leg with
Dick's own cut throat razor. The razor was a relic from his father's
time in the army, and Dick knew that it was very sharp. He stared with
horror at the creatures pale body. Shrunken sacks of flesh on its chest
that hung over the rib bones, revealed that this was in fact a woman.
Not any woman, but the woman who delivered little Nell into the World.
Any attraction Dick felt had long since died. The combination of drugs
and schizophrenia resulted in a body resembling a concentration camp
survivor.
Slowly Jane raised her head and Dick found himself looking into the
vacant eyes of a junkie. Hard to believe those green eyes had once
looked at him with love. Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, the
stick woman's consciousness returned. A smile spread slowly across the
tight skin of her face.
"Dickie".
The sound was broken glass being gargled by a garbage disposal.
"I missed you, baby. Did you miss me?"
Dick was rooted to the spot; his muscles betraying him again, like all
those other times. Jane raised the razor to eye level and slowly
focused on it. Then, gradually, she brought it to her lips and kissed
the side of the blade. All the time her eyes were fixed on Dick.
Jane wobbled unsteadily as she placed the scrawny leg she had been
working on, onto the bathroom floor.
"I've been thinking of you, honey? for a long time. Did you ever think
of me? Did you ever think that I'd be coming back to you?"
Dick realized that he was leaning backwards, away from the razor. His
body seemed to be obeying someone else's commands now.
"All those nights away from you?all those dreams, things always ended
up the same. Because if I can't have you, no one else will?"
Suddenly Jane lunged forward, simultaneously swinging the razor in a
wide arc at Dick's face. Dick felt the blade brush the air in front of
him. Jane overbalanced; her leg that was still within the bath lost
traction, causing Jane to slip forward. Before Dick could react, Jane
fell, her head striking the side of the washbasin. It made a sickening
cracking sound. Jane's body collapsed onto the wet floor. Blood poured
from her head and started to pool on the linoleum.
Dick found that his legs could no longer bear him. Slowly he slid down
the wall to the floor. Dick's chest heaved and he dry gagged. Was the
nightmare finally over?