A Wonderful World - a short story

A Wonderful World

“It is a wonderful world”, she thought to herself. The lady sipping her drink with a lavish dress that made her sparkle like a ruby, her body slumped on the chair with her ever-lasting legs spread out in such a fashion that would make any man’s head spin if looked at the right angle. She was beautiful she thought, but tonight was the night that she felt more beautiful than ever. She felt complete than she did ever since her marriage with her husband. It wasn’t always like this. But marriage gets to even the best of us and it is all about how you handle it, and after all “familiarity breeds contempt”.

                                                            

The night had gone exactly as planned, the five star hotel had lived up to their expectations, and the husband had looked forward to treating his wife to a nice night out in the city, where there marriage was facing some problems a year before as the husband had failed to keep his carnal desires in check when it came to women other than his wife. His wife was torn apart, but they were over that now. Things were finally looking up for the couple. They proceeded to drink at the hotel bar to their heart’s content to celebrate this momentous occasion. Once they had one drink too many, both of them decided to turn in for the night and by the time they had reached the floor for their room they were devouring each other’s mouth and had to take a break for the husband to use the bathroom. That was when it happened. The husband leaving his phone on the dresser, had started ringing. The wife, trying to put on some more lavish lipstick to further accentuate her beauty for her lovely husband – or so she thought – looked at the phone to read a simple three word text “I love you”.

Fast-forwarding to the present, she pilfered a glance to her husband lying on the hotel bed, looking up at the ceiling with a resting, satisfied look on his face. Pondering about the marriage that had made her feel alive and also made her feel the loneliest person in the world, she felt that it had all come to a full circle tonight. The pain was gone for the first time in a long time she had left the embrace of her childhood, gone was the endearing heart burn that was her miscarriage and gone was a little piece of humanity that would haunt her for the rest of her life. But for this moment, for the few seconds of relief that she would be able to enjoy from the boredom that was her life, the excruciating struggle of her mundane lifestyle that had made her doubt her career choices and second-guessing the thought of having kids; all of those doubts, the dread was gone. She felt peace, but in a way that she never thought she would ever feel and in a very strange way she enjoyed it. The only problem was that the ringing in her ears wouldn’t stop, the constant ringing that felt like head was being ripped apart as if someone was tearing away her two cortexes like tearing paper. But she didn’t care, today was a great day in her mind and a day full of revelations that she thinks has helped her marriage beyond what she could’ve ever imagined. She gazed up to look at her reflection in the mirror of the dresser and couldn’t believe how happy she looked.

She put on some more red lipstick with frivolous look on her face and the reflection in the mirror gave a sinister smirk as she proceeded to remove the smudges of blood from her face. Her husband lay there smiling on the bed, as if he had been freed from the agony, with the blood slowly blotting his shirt that his wife had bought him for this occasion. The life in his eyes had gone but he died smiling.

The wife looked down at the gun that she had used. The smirk from her face disappeared as she had finally grasped with had happened in the last few moments, and suddenly the reflection of the person in the mirror had a look of despair on her face. There was a commotion outside as other people had stepped outside of their rooms and lifts of the hotel floor had started dinging at their floor. She drank the remaining vodka martini with a single gulp and started feeling drowsy as she took the ‘murder weapon’ in her hand once more. Her hands trembling, she put it upto her head, with a single tear slowly rolling down her cheek as she whimpered thinking about the false sense of justice she had felt. And never in a million years did she think that she would ever think that it was her time to say “it WAS a wonderful world”.

This was my first attempt at a short story, well a very short story. So, please if you like my content follow my blog and if you do not like what you see, please leave constructive criticism in the comments :).

-Saquib