His Wife’s Murder

‘You never do anything half, do you?’ she almost shouted, a dark shadow shimmering through her eyes. They were jogging in the park well before the sun rise. It was a routine that they had followed for some years but not religiously.

He looked askance at her. She was a riddle that he had failed to solve even after seven years of their marriage.

‘Who is that wench who keeps flitting in and out of your cabin?’  He was stunned. He had suspected that she had been spying on him; but he could not imagine that she could go to such lengths to keep a watch on him. He felt a ripple of anger; he was not inclined to suppress it.

He did not utter a word; it would have been fruitless. She would start parroting her litany of allegations and threats. He could sense something boiling deep inside her. But he was scared of his own fury; it could erupt anytime.

He stopped abruptly; he thought a dollop of black paint was lying on the track. Suddenly a furious crow attacked him; he was unnerved. He realized that the black thing lying on the track was in fact a dead crow. She laughed derisively.

As they neared the last bend, he looked at the tree; the beehive had become too massive. It was surprisingly on a branch that was quite low.

He looked around. There was no one close by. He stumbled; even if someone had been there he could not have noticed that he had stumbled intentionally. While trying to regain his balance he pushed her. She fell on the ground, almost directly under the beehive.

With one swift sweep of his hand, which he had cleverly wrapped with a thick cloth, he tore the hive into pieces. Some of the hive pieces fell on her.

Before the swarm of bees could attack him, he ran as he had never run.

He did not dare to look back. He had guessed that that hive would have at least twenty thousand bees. He had read somewhere that fifteen hundred bee stings could kill a grown up.

‘You never do anything half.’  He thought he heard these words again.

**********

A post for Sunday Whirl and Flash Fiction for The Purposeful Practitioner

Word count 368