Creative Exercise

This is a creative exercise that I did for ENG 465 (The Uncanny Novella) and that I had to read for the whole class. I'm surprised I got positive reviews for it (in class anyway). Well, let me know what you think!

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As I was folding up the laundry I heard him talking on the phone in the other room. “Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll do it tonight.” He was so serious when he said it, so I went to investigate. As I came into the room, he looked up holding the phone in his hand.

“Hey, who’s on the phone?”

“Just a friend…hey, why don’t I make dinner tonight?” he replied, changing the subject. I gave him the okay to use my kitchen in an attempt to cook something edible. He usually did this when I was tired or particularly stressed about something. Lately, I had been getting really bad migraines and went to see the doctor the week before. Everything was normal except for the fact that I had an excessive amount of earwax. It was a waste of time going to the doctor—all he did was give advice on which meds to use and sent me on my way. I could hear a lot better though, which was a plus.

When I came home, stepping out onto our driveway, I could hear him talking on the phone. I froze and shook my head—it’s probably the meds kicking in or something. When I opened the door, he was in the kitchen, probably getting ready to create some havoc—and talking on the phone, but how I’d known, I had no idea. I didn’t understand—could hear rats scuttling above in the attic but had never heard them there before. As I ran upstairs to change into something comfortable, I heard him talking. “Yeah, I still have it…I put it in the kitchen cupboard. I told you I would do it tonight, so I will!”

“Honey, could you come down and stir this for me? I need to check something really quick,” he yelled. “Sure.” I admit my curiosity got the better of me and once I saw him go upstairs, I looked in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. All I could see were a couple of small moldy boxes that probably had tools in them, dish soap, and rat poison. As I heard him coming down the stairs, I started stirring the concoction until it looked like it was well-stirred.

“Who were you talking to before,” I asked.

“Oh, it was just a friend asking about something at work. Nothing too important.”

“Really?” I replied, “It sounded serious.” He shook his head, “It was nothing.”

He was up to something—too bad I didn’t have telepathy. He was acting odd these days, really secretive. I could hear guilt in his voice, but I couldn’t tell you why. As I washed the dishes he had used to make dinner, he set the table, poured us the soup as I joined him at the table. He smiled and said, “You look beautiful. Go ahead, dig in and tell me how it tastes.”

As I raised the spoon to my mouth to try it, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” he said. I stuck my nose in my soup bowl and found it had a funny stench. So then I took a whiff of the soup in the pot—it was fine. My traitorous mind thought of all the possibilities of why my soup had a strange scent but I couldn’t come up with anything believable. I figured he had put something in the soup as a prank, like he used to when we were younger, so I switched my soup with his. I looked up and saw him staring at me. “It was a just a solicitor,” he said. I gave him a small smile and said, “Let’s eat.” As we sat there, supping soup, I kept looking at him out of the corner of my eye. He caught me staring. “What? Do I have something on my face? Do you like the soup?”

“It’s surprisingly good,” I replied. That night, we fell asleep in each other’s arms. When I woke up, I felt cold. Turning towards him, I smiled, gradually opened my eyes…and screamed.