Empty Tub

"You've grown awfully lazy recently," he observed coolly.

She glared resentfully up at him from behind her mask of impassiveness. He knew it was her distaste for repetition that stayed her tongue, not laziness, but he was intentionally provoking her. He longed for her to get up and scream at him; to slap him, or to laugh or cry. Even a sneer. Any reaction at all was better than this stony aloofness.

What he didn't know was the nameless, faceless horror that oppressed her dreams whenever she drifted off to sleep. She would try to scream herself awake, but fear paralyzed her as the blackness crept into her opened mouth and down her throat, choking her. It pressed against the inside of her chest from her lungs and sat on the outside of it, crushing her and eating her simultaneously. It had finally driven her early from their bed. She didn't tell him. She was afraid if she tried, the darkness would pour from her mouth instead of words, and then they'd both perish. It was better this way.

Instead, she said, "You're the one who interrupted my bath asking for a cup of tea. If you want me to make it, then you'll bring me the kettle." She said it slowly, like an adult trying to instruct a slow child, dangling the empty cup from her little finger to emphasize her point. He didn't move for a few moments, staring down at her, trying to rip the truth from her empty face.

"Say it," she ordered tonelessly.

He remained silent. The accusation was on the tip of his brain, aching to burst its way out, but he couldn't bring himself to commit to that final act that would be the destruction of them. If he verbalized what he woke up condemning her for. . .

"Say it, or get the fuck out of my face."

Burning love warred with smoldering hate across the battlefield of his countenance; twins turned against one another, neither stronger than the other. Neither capable of defeating the other. He wanted her to care that she was hurting him. Her apathetic face mocked his pain-stricken face, he felt. He turned abruptly from her, leaving her in her empty tub.

She wondered fleetingly if he would actually bring the kettle, and whether she should have asked for the leaves as well. She knew he'd be angry when she sent him back, but she couldn't find the strength to care. She pushed him easily out of her mind to continue staring at the faucet. She wanted to turn it on, she was cold. But she was afraid the darkness would flood out of it instead of water. She shivered.