Live dog, Dead lion | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Live dog, Dead lion | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gregory Kane
02/18/08
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I just can’t take any more. God help me, I have tried my best for eleven long years. I’ve turned the other cheek so many times, I feel like Tyson’s been using me for warm-up practice. Not that she’s actually hit me of course. But her arsenal leaves bruises just as painful to the touch and scars that fester and never properly heal. The sneaky little innuendos, the constant comparisons with other people’s marriages, the thinly veiled disappointments about holidays we can’t afford.

Solomon expressed it just right: “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.” Of course, were I to take that literally, I’d probably be sent flying by the next strong gale. But I follow what Solomon was saying: when the wife gets too much, get moving.

So I’m out of here. Ain’t nothing gonna stop me. Mind you, I would love to be a fly on the wall when they repossess her fancy car. I told her we couldn’t afford the payments. I begged her but she wouldn’t listen. She never has. Maybe when the bills start piling up and my ‘paltry’ salary is no longer keeping her in the manner to which she’s been accustomed - maybe then she’ll wish she had met me half-way.

Coughing slightly, the man reached for the decanter and poured himself another shot of whiskey. His fingers trembled as he read through the goodbye note. Then in a pique of rage, he scrunched it up and hurled it into the still glowing embers of the fire.

Here’s something else that Solomon wrote: “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.” Boy did he understand women. Beats me why he never learned his lesson though. He moved from one dame to the next like he was sampling chocolates in a gift box.

I blame her mother. I should have seen the signs when she first took me home to meet my future in-laws: the backbiting, the petty grievances, the tittle-tattling. They say that a girl ends up like her mother, but I was too starry-eyed and love sick to see the obvious. Marry in haste, they say, repent at leisure. Tell me about it!

At first I kidded myself into thinking that it was all God’s way of teaching me some vital lesson. Maybe I would end up a better person or something. But I’ve come to realise that God’s just like a stand-up comedian whose audience has to bear the brunt of his bad jokes. That’s why I’m taking myself off, going where she can never hurt me again. And if God doesn’t approve, then that’s his problem.

The man picked up the familiar photograph. He stared longingly at the two angelic faces. Then, with a barely suppressed moan, he replaced the photograph, face down.

I’ll miss the boys of course. They’re my heart and soul. But that hasn’t stopped her from trying to poison them, endlessly speaking ill of me, lacing every comment with bile, urging them to view their father in the worst possible light. I dunno, maybe I’ll see them again one day. Only God knows what lies round the next corner and he ain’t saying.

I’ll miss the old house too. It’s been in my family for four generations and the dust is thick with nostalgia. But it too has been tainted, defiled by loathsome memories of impotence and affront. At one point I even toyed with the idea of burning the house down. But why should anyone else have to pay for my failure to be a man?

I hope she suffers. I hope it hurts being abandoned. I hope she ends her days lonely, bitter and shrivelled. That would be sweet justice.

The man slowly opened the drawer and removed the revolver. Cocking the hammer with his thumb, he held the barrel to his temple. Unbidden, another word of Solomon’s sprang to mind: “Anyone who is among the living has hope - even a live dog is better off than a dead lion.” The verse made him hesitate: was his life really not worth living?

I… I don’t know. She deserves to suffer just like she made me suffer.
But I loved her once. A part of me still does. Dear God, what should I do?

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Proverbs 25:24; 27:15-16 Ecclesiastes 9:4 NIV

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