A Goodbye Riddle (Short Story)

Goodbye Riddle

You tell your wife happy birthday in all cheerfulness, as you head out to the balcony. The dinner you’ve cooked for her is waiting.

“Terrific news,” Latifah, your wife, says. “Rotting thirty-one,” she adds.

Pulling a chair, she tucks herself into it, proceeds to fix stranded strands of black hair piled high on her head.

“I assume I should be picking my nostrils,” you say and sit down, “being thirty-five?”

The table is heaped with the product of your genius. Mini baguettes drizzling in sesame oil, topped with sesame seeds. Time honored combo of chicken and rice with hints of coconut and curry. Mahi Mahi encrusted with crunchy macadamia nuts and coconut finished with creamy pineapple sauce and … your stomach roars, a gust of saliva spills into your mouth.

“You never stopped being a boy,” Latifah says with a diabolical smirk.

“We’re not talking about menopause, are we?” You laugh. But one look at Latifah chewing her lower lip, her defiant chin thrust forward, your laugh vanishes.

“You have nothing to worry about,” you say, fidgeting with your fingers, “That’s what I’m trying to say. Look at you.” A hand gesture sweeps an arc on Latifah’s face. “Fresh like your wedding dress,” you say, “shining like the wedding ring on your finger. I can’t begin to…”

“Enough, Archie!” Latifah clips in, “I get it.”

You suck in air and look over the balcony to her back, to the verdant flowerbeds and pentagons of granite-polished cobblestones — to the vibrant Dutch garden flourishing in green and white baby’s breath, sunshine-yellow birds of paradise, fluffy-pink blazing stars, proud trumpet-shaped calla lilies and more. The light breeze disperses their subtle essences into the sultry early August evening air.

Relieved by the pleasantness, you turn and focus on your wife’s sandpapered coffee-brown face — a gentle forehead, thin-stenciled black eyebrows and lavishly brushed eyelashes, down a nose fitted with small triangular nostrils, to her pushed forward rosy lips. To you, she looks like Nefertiti or even better.

Oh well.

A perfect evening, a gorgeous wife, what more to hope for, in…

Halting, you take in the violets and ambers of the sun’s sinking disk, reflecting off the glass walls of your six-bedroom house. You paid for it cash down. In the distance, the cheerful twilight tints the pine trees lining the straight skyline psychedelic green.
Latifah’s eyes animate. Green. Intense…. in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in town.

“I promised myself to quit cigarette smoking today,” she says interrupting the thoughts streaming in your skull.

You tell her it’s a great thing and add, “Lettie, I didn’t know you were trying to quit.”

The rich red wine, a Belliecart Salmon vintage chardonnay, gurgles into two tall-twisted stem wine glasses, as you pour.

“I’m delighted for you,” you say and fill both glasses halfway.

Putting down the bottle gently, you push Lettie’s glass toward her and then reach out and brush her dark downy logs. Four soft short sensuous strokes send quivers breaking on the shores of your tempered heart.

“I woke up at 8:00 a.m. today,” Lettie says, leans away and settles her straight back into her seat. “And smoked at 8:30 a.m. Not much achieved, I’m afraid.”

There is some amount of regret in her gentle voice, which puts you ill at ease. So you tick off a few seconds in your head and imagine yourself on a joyride in your Ferrari down a vast empty motorway. The sun is out and in full blaze and the sky is clear. There’s a light breeze coming in from the sea, sweeping across the colorful fields.

You breathe out slowly. “What can I say … you tried,” is all you say, raise your chest from the table, holding out your glass.
A slight clink of glasses comes midway the table. “Happy birthday,” you say to your wife and drink.
Through the glass, you watch Lettie swirl the wine in her mouth and swallow.

“This cheats delight,” she nods at her wine.

“Selected just for you,” you say and put your glass down.

Lettie hangs her head, exposing her long neck. A sudden dampness veils her eyes. Fleetingly, you wonder about her thoughts, but like always, in Lettie you see your reflection glow into impeccable clarity. Your imperfections perfected in her purity, the reason why you climbed the ranks at Banny & Banny to become a highly ranked criminal lawyer in the country. At only thirty-five.

Lettie drops her gaze and sips more wine.

“Keep trying honey,” you say and begin to eat.

“Have you ever tried quitting an addiction?” Lettie fixes you with a stare.

“I’m addicted to only one thing,” you say. “And I don’t mind the addiction. And I don’t intend to quit any time soon.”

“What is it?”

“You,” you say with a shrug.

Silence.

“Have you ever contemplated quitting?” Lettie says, squinting.

“If you mean stop loving you,” you shrug again and lift a tender chicken bit, chew and swallow, “No,” you say.

“How come?” Her stare is yet to blink, her plate empty.

“Because … why all the questions?” You frown and give your wife a cursory curious look. “That’s a rather odd thing to say.” With a white napkin you touch the sides of your mouth, noticing the sparkle of your wedding ring.

Lettie puts down her glass and entwines her slim delicate hands on the table.

“I think you should know.” She takes a deep pull of air. “That today between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m. I did some serious thinking.”

“Thinking … about what?” A bright light comes on in your heart. You are excited and say, “A new adventure, perhaps?”

“Divorce, Archie … I want a divorce.” Suddenly, her lips tremble each time she says divorce.

“You are kidding, right? Why would you say something so…”

Lettie’s green eyes turn moist and brim with tears.

“So what, Archie?” she says in a burst of anger. “I’ve known about you and the housemaid for a while now … sleeping in our bed.”

“No you won’t leave me, Lettie.” You drop your cutlery on the table, shaking your head as though about to catch a fever.

“Did you sleep with the maid or not?”

“I don’t know, Lettie.”

“You don’t know?” She grips the table, her red nails biting into the red table linen as though it is your flesh.

“I think … I think I did.”

Your head falls to your shoes. Waves of pain burst through your skull like gasoline on flames. You grab your cheeks and the fire shows no mercy. It sears into your brain.

“Enough of this rambling, Archie!”

You open your eyes to the harsh voice, lifting your head to the face and your heart almost stops.

“You are not Lettie,” you say, barely able to hold the scream pushing up your throat.

“Hell, of course I’m not.” The woman sitting opposite you scowls — her voice rusty like old steel.

“Where am I? Where is this place?” You look about you, but recognize nothing.

“You’re home, Archie,” the woman says and slaps a papery hand on the table. Her ancient eyes boring an ice core through you leave you frozen.

Sitting back, the woman runs her hands down her chiffon flowery dress. In her stern stare, you fidget with your fingers, rubbing your knuckles against each other.

“You’re not Lettie,” you repeat any number of times, shaking your head.

Wondering whether you are hallucinating, you bang the table. A glass hits the floor and spills liquid on your shoes, the pieces ringing in your ears.
This is real.

“Stop living in your imagination!” the woman says. “You know very well there isn’t any Lettie and that there has never been one. It’s just me and you, Archie.” The old woman laughs, poisoning your mind with a sound worn by alcohol.

Who’s she? You can’t stop wondering. The face is familiar. A small sensation of hate ruffles your intestines.

“You liar,” you howl, shaking in a sudden quake. “Today is Lettie’s birthday. We were having dinner just a while ago.”

“And where would she be?” the woman asks. She looks to her left, right, then to her back and then to you — a grime grin, grim like her prehistoric face. “There’s nowhere to hide here, is there?” she says.

“What did you do to her?” you say between clenched teeth. “She … she quit cigarette smoking today.”

“I told you I was going to quit today. God! For once you remembered something.”

“You? No, no, you are mistaken … how the hell did you get here in the first place?” You twist your face as you attempt to put your memory together.

“Today is my birthday,” the strange woman says. “See! I’m wearing my Chiffon flowery dress.” The woman raises her hands, glancing over herself with great pride.

For the first time, you notice that the sun that had been heating your face only a while ago, is no longer there. That you are sitting on a bare veranda, in a beaten balcony chair hard-as-stone. The smell of coffee drifts from the door to your right. You lean and take a look into the space beyond, into a dull kitchen, the walls covered in sickening yellowing paint. You turn to the woman. In a moment of clarity, you recognize her.

“I’ve told you time again,” your mother says. “Living with you is like pushing shit up a slope with a stick.”

I’ve heard this before. Many times.

But you don’t know the exact meaning of the statement, other than that whenever your mother says these words; often she looks at you as she’s doing right now, as if you are shit.

“The drugs destroyed not only your life, your career as a lawyer, but mine too,” your mother shrieks. “You’ve been out now for months in that dark zone of yours.” She stabs the air with a finger, at your face. “Rambling about your love for an invisible woman, looking at me as if I’m not here — a white wall in a colorful art gallery, while I take care of your crap!”

The hospitals. The patients staring into empty spaces. Are they watching a fascinating movie?

You begin to shake as the pictures flash pass one by one. Your feet cold, your hands stiffen in the chilliness and the pain in your head returns. The sting bursts a warm dam open in your face.

Your mother drops her cutlery on the table, sighs in disgust and crawls into the house.

The television comes on, the volume rising until it drowns your sobs.

“Welcome to days of our lives,” a deep male voice drifts from the television.

A while after, you feel the sun on your face. The abandoned garden is once again in bloom. In the middle, your blazing six-bedroom glass house stands shining. The tranquility of the glittering neighborhood and the psychedelic green pines in the horizon appear from the mist of brief reverie.

“Lettie,” you call out, again and again, but there’s no answer. The neighborhood is thick with silence. Your voice echoes back to you in mockery, again and again.

An anguish sense of loneliness grabs you. Somehow you know that even in this fantasy world of yours, where nothing ever shifts from its bright colors — where sapphires dazzle forever and know not the dreariness of age, you are lonely.

“Have you ever tried quitting an addiction?” Lettie’s voice rings out, over and over. But no matter how much you stare there is no one there but you alone.

Ernest Alanki writes short stories, poems and novel length fiction. His works have appeared or will soon feature in The Journal of Microliterature, DUNIA Magazine and The American Mensa ltd., writer’s magazine (Calliope), Big Stupid and Ngoh Kuoh Reviews.

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