Take Me To Church

Flash Fiction

He slumps through the scuff polished wood panel door and looks down at the empty space on the welcome mat where her house shoes used to be. Six months gone and he can still see the carpet perked from her digging her toes in every time she took them off.

Bitch couldn't even take her shoes off right.

He opens the ice box, cutting an indulgent chunk from the Roquefort they purchased in Marseille, the hapless second honeymoon where they discovered their bridge over troubled water had collapsed.

That was the song she sang at their reception, their gazes love locked other than a few surreptitious side eyes for her side piece standing back with the rest of the groomsmen. He held her hand and sang Brown Eyed Girl while the man she was barebacking in their bed danced with her best friend.

Somewhere in the steeple the bellmaster stomps his way up the stairs overhead, sending ceiling grit into eyes. He sneezes and rubs his face vigorously, shoveling the rest of the dust garnished cheese into his mouth before grabbing a beer from the fridge. The door slams, scattering ice across the linoleum. Let it melt there with the cold shoulder she'd been giving him since the business trip interrupted their post wedding bliss in Paris. As if he's to blame for every goddamn corporate suit in need of a face to face every time an investor shits his pants. Clock makers, punch takers, shelling out skills to look better on paper.

For what.

A fucking door mat with a permanent print.

Vermin ex girlfriends and a rat bastard bestie.

Cheers to that.

He knocks back the beer as the bells begin to chime the Angelus. Six o'clock. He puts his shoes back on, careful to preserve the damning indent deriding his every arrival to the dank church apartment. Time to get upstairs and join the rest of the court ordered sad sacks filtering into a room with stale coffee and staler life stories. Just another beat down beast with burdens. Another estranged fuzzball fumbling for redemption.

He wipes beer foam from his whiskers and dumps the empty in the bin, tucking his ears under his coat collar before opening the door to face the wretchedness of a weary world.

What was it her cunt of a mother used to say before laughing in his face at the irony?

Ah yes. That's the one.

Poor as a church mouse.

♤

(Prompt “Estranged Fuzzball” from

Jon T

's Promptmanteau Generator, photo sourced from Google)