2623. Potted plants

Gillian was an enthusiastic, and successful, propagator of potted plants.

The last thing her now ex-husband did before permanently leaving the house was to spray all her plants with weed killer.

Gillian cottoned on about a week later as to why her plants were dying. She thought of revenge and dismissed the thought immediately. It can’t be construed as revenge if the wheels had been set in motion prior to the deed demanding revenge.

Yes, she would leave things exactly as they had been arranged. Not only would he be wiped off the face of the earth, but the Hells Angels Gang had paid her good money for information that would lead to his whereabouts. She’d use some of the money to get more plants.

2541. A much deserved break

Freya had had the foulest of weeks. Her husband had upped and left. Her youngest son had been hit by a car and was in intensive care. The three girls were all crying out for money for their books at school. The neighbour was threatening a court case over a holly tree growing over the fence line. Her bank card had been blocked by the bank for not paying off her banking debts. Her mother had died. She was out of cigarettes. The power company had cut off the electricity because her husband – her ex-husband – hadn’t paid. Her oldest son, who was epileptic, had run out of medication.

Enough is enough! Off she went for a long weekend to her beach house. Oh the relief!

Unfortunately it was where ex-hubby had set up shop.

2291. Midnight mystery

Every time the clock strikes midnight, the entire house goes dark for 15 minutes. It doesn’t just go dark; everything switches off. I don’t find it scary, but it’s a nuisance. My girlfriend, who lives with me, finds it a bit scary however. I have to reset my alarm clock. I have to reset the oven clock, and the microwave clock, and the coffee machine clock. The night light above the garage door turns on when the power returns, only to not go off until it is reset. But the biggest hassle of all is that unless I thought to set it earlier, the bread-maker turns off in the middle of its cycle and there is no bread in the morning.

Needless to say, I called an electrician. He checked everything and said there was nothing wrong with anything and it shouldn’t happen. I got the feeling he didn’t believe me. He left, saying the only possible explanation was that things were being turned off by the supply company. Why don’t I phone them?

So I phoned them and all they said was don’t be silly. There’s no reason in the world why they would cut the electricity to my house for 15 minutes every midnight.  It was a bit of a relief because my ex-wife works at the supply company and I was afraid I might have struck her on the phone. She despises me and we’d be incapable of having a civil conversation. So luckily I didn’t get her when I called the power company. But it still doesn’t solve my problem as to why the entire house goes dark for 15 minutes every midnight.

2238. Island resort

My husband left me just over two years ago. He simply disappeared. Perhaps “disappeared” is not the right word because he left a note saying he was going. He never said where to. He’d had enough. To all intents and purposes I might as well have been a widow. Except a widow has a dead body and can start the grieving process. I was still waiting for him to come back months later.

Now I realize I have to face the cold truth. I grasped the future with both hands and booked a two week vacation to an island resort. Imagine that! Golden sands, palm trees, coral reefs! I can relax for the first time in ages. Besides, now that I am up to facing reality, who knows if I might meet Mr Right? Wouldn’t that be fun? As they used to say before it became a cliché – “Today is the first day of the rest of your life!”

Now at last I’m here. It’s not raining! It’s warm, sunny, and beautiful. There is the pool just out the French doors of the apartment I rent. One can get meals delivered to the door, but at present I prefer to go to the communal refectory. It’s an opportunity to meet new people. Every time I go – breakfast, lunch, and dinner – I say to myself “I wonder if I shall meet Mr Right this time!”

But now I’ve just come back from the refectory. I’m packing. I’m leaving this tropical paradise. I know it was him. It was my husband. He was helping himself to a generous spoonful of scrambled eggs plopped on lashings of butter on toast. I don’t think he saw me; he was too intent on his food. It was definitely my husband. Unquestionably.

So on the day he left me who the heck did I shoot in the back?

2095. Who was out to murder?

Urs was a tyrannical husband. Alice had long felt trapped in the relationship. She knew she should untangle herself from such a situation but really she didn’t know how. Her only time of peace was after the evening meal when she would take her coffee (Urs was watching the evening news) and wander down to the back of the garden where Urs kept his racing pigeons.

Urs was besotted with his pigeons. Alice found their gentle cooing both soothing and consoling.

The racing pigeons were worth a pretty packet. He would enter racing competitions with them regularly. He cared for them more than he cared for his wife.

One of his more tyrannical aspects was that Alice should prepare only healthy food. He regarded vegetable greens as a must to every meal, especially peas. “Peas are riddled with nutrients,” he would say. “That’s why they are so green.”

Alice hated peas. Part of her post-dinner evening walk was to take the peas she had hidden in her napkin and give them to the pigeons.

One early morning, Urs went down to see his pigeons and they were all dead. A veterinarian post-mortem showed that they had eaten poisoned peas.

2093. Oh what a tragedy!

Have you any idea how expensive it is to get a divorce? Raymond wanted to get rid of his wife but he wasn’t keen to lose almost half of what he’d worked for throughout his life. It was cheaper (and quicker) simply to get rid of her in a cunning and imperceptible way.

He devised a fabulous plan. As far as he could work out, it hadn’t been done before – at least he’d never heard of it. He had one of those cars whereby the driver had controls to lock the car doors. It was a child protection device. If the children in the back and passenger seats were messing around they couldn’t accidently open the door and fall out.

What Raymond would do was to stall the car on a rail crossing just as a train was hurtling towards them. Then he’d quickly press the button to lock his wife’s door, leap out his own door, and… Oh what a tragedy! Oh what a sadness! Why did it happen to me?

It wasn’t exactly something he could practise. After all, how many cars can one afford? But he drove the route several times and knew well the times the trains passed.

The day arrived. They were to visit great aunt Maude and bring her the usual weekly supply of chocolate and cat food. They were just about to leave (Raymond was actually wearing his running shoes!) when a message came that great Aunt Maud’s sister also wanted to visit Maude, and could they pick her up on the way? That ruined things. The request meant they would have to take another route. Murder would have to wait another day.

The following week off they went on their habitual visit. Raymond’s wife (goodness, as yet she is not introduced – her name was Fiona) had trouble dragging Raymond’s drugged body to the garage and into the car. Once done she drove to the rail crossing and stopped. She got out to watch.

Oh what a tragedy! Oh what a sadness! Why did it happen to me?

(P.S. A Happy Easter to all who wish to be wished such! I shall be hopefully back with a murder on the 5th, Easter Monday!)

2060. Them’s the breaks

Ivan was a weedy little man and Sheila was buxom. After seventeen years marriage Sheila decided that enough was enough and wanted a divorce.

“Enough is enough,” she said.

“Enough of what?” asked Ivan.

“Enough,” said Sheila.

There was no reason for a divorce except Sheila wanted change. After seventeen years the humdrum-ity of life was calling for a change in direction. Ivan was at first mystified and then angry. All papers and things were filed. The divorce came through. Sheila moved down the street in search of the great tomorrow.

The next day Ivan won a hundred and twenty-four million in the lottery.

1888. I can’t think of everything at once

“I can’t think of everything at once” was Bella’s way of not only trying to find a reason for what happened, but her way of coping with the situation.

Dale had left Bella quite unexpectedly. One minute they were happily married, or so Bella thought, and the next minute he’d upped and left and was cohabitating with that floosy from the confectionary shop down on the corner of Shelley Street. Bella had no idea what he saw in her. And now Bella was on her own. The dividing of the matrimonial goods hadn’t as yet happened, but Bella was ensconced in the joint house and she wasn’t budging for the time being. Besides, it was winter and the house had a log fire and lots of firewood stack in the shed. She would cope.

On a rather chilly winter’s evening Bella discovered she had let the log fire go out. Dale had always set and lit the fire but she wasn’t entirely impractical. She screwed up some pages of newspaper and wigwammed some kindling over the top of it. That was when she discovered that she couldn’t think of everything at once. Dale had always lit the fire with his cigarette lighter. There were no matches in the house. Matches had not been on her grocery list.

Of course it was a silly idea, but Bella had heard since early childhood that primitive humans started a fire by rubbing two sticks together. She didn’t have a clue how to do it, and suspected very much that it wouldn’t work anyway. For a time she thought she would stay warm by wrapping herself up in blankets. She would buy some matches tomorrow. But then Bella thought of a solution.

She rolled up a sheet of newspaper tightly. She went to the kitchen, turned on the toaster, and from the element of the toaster she lit the rolled up newspaper. On the way to the wood burner with her burning torch she brushed past the lacy curtains in the dining room.

It’s always a shame when nothing is insured.

(Note: Today’s story number of 1888 is out of sync. That’s because a month or so back Story 1888 was missed – so this is a catch-up!)

1817. A close shave

It was a total give-away when Garth, while setting the table for dinner, nonchalantly said, “It depends on the brand, Ida.”

Garth’s statement was in response to his wife’s question of “Do you want some tomato sauce with dinner?” The problem was, Garth’s wife’s name was Sylvia, not Ida. Sylvia, who was suspicious at the best of times, cottoned on to it immediately. The Ida referred to would inevitably be Ida Brocklehurst who was a teacher’s assistant at the school where Garth taught Biology. Clearly they were having an affair. Why else would he so matter-a-factly trot out the name of Ida if they weren’t carrying on a rampant and sweaty undercover plot of fornication?

“Why did you call me Ida?” asked Sylvia in a voice that both quaked with fear and yet had all the vehemence of someone who already intended to sue for divorce.

“I have no idea,” said Garth. “It just came out.”

Garth came up with an immediate plan. “I think we should both have our ears tested,” he said. “They provide a free hearing test at the pharmacy.”

“Why do we need a hearing test?” demanded Sylvia.

“Because I didn’t call you Ida. I said It depends on the brand, my dear. ”

“Oh, how silly of me,” said Sylvia now slightly embarrassed and in recovery mode.

Garth was relieved. He couldn’t wait to tell Ida in the morning. And somehow he had to stop Sylvia from getting her hearing tested.

1803. Box in the attic

There’s a box I keep in the attic. I don’t know why I keep it. It’s got a few papers in it. I know exactly what they are.

They’re my divorce papers. From Marcia. They’ve been stored in the attic for almost five years. The whole thing came to me as a brutal shock. It was the last thing I was expecting. And then suddenly, one dinner time, Marcia announced the divorce.

I suppose I kept the papers so I’d know what to do next time. If it ever happened again. Like it would. I haven’t dated anyone since the divorce. These things knock the living daylights out of you. Nothing could replace Marcia. I live off the memory. I feed off the memory of those happy days. She’s since remarried. I suspect she met Herbert a good while prior to the divorce announcement.

My sister says I should move on, so this afternoon, when the truck came around collecting the trash I went up to the attic. I grabbed the box with the divorce papers, took it outside and chucked it (with a certain delightful vehemence I might add) onto the truck. It’s gone now. All gone. It was liberating. I felt as if I had let go.

Besides, yesterday I met Melanie.