Valentine’s Day, 2019. As she moved into the kitchen, Patricia yawned, stretched, and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Although she was cheating on Donald, she was very satisfied that he didn’t know about it. At least he couldn’t prove it. And neither could she because it seemed as if this man was a sort of ghost- her imaginary lover. He was the true definition of mysterious.
The man she was cheating with, Natas, was very strange in an exciting kind of way. She’d first met him when they collided in the food line at the showing of The Prodigy a week ago. She loved his eyes – mysterious, deep, and dark. It seemed that at that moment he’d taken her heart, body, and soul. Upset about her new feelings, she got into an argument with Donald moments before the main feature. After that moment six weeks ago, she’d been seeing Natas secretly. Being with him reminded her of all her most favorite food delicacies: Gin-Campari Sour, blueberry pie, corn on the cob, crangon shrimp, and lobster. She’d even planned on satiating her immense hunger by seeing him today, on Valentine’s Day.
Entering the kitchen, she spotted an object on the counter.
“I should have put on my glasses. Hope it’s not a roach.” She thought it odd that the scent of Gin-Campari roamed over her tongue. She turned on the lights in order to see it better. It was a pink candy heart.
With two fingers, she picked up the heart and read the writing on top of it.
“BE MY VALENTINE.”
“Donald,” she sighed, “how sweet. He probably placed it there before he went to work early this morning.”
She started to eat it, then allowed bad thoughts to enter her head. Not trusting where the candy came from, she threw it in the wastebasket thinking that Donald might have thrown it on the floor or worse, thanks to their argument last night. She started to go to the cupboard and retrieve a pot when she saw another heart, this time blue, on the gas stove. Was that blueberry scent she smelled? She read the print on the heart.
“BAD GIRL.”
If Donald thought she was a bad girl, wait until he gets home from work this afternoon. The urge was there and she was prepared to be treated like a queen being with Natas before ending the day in explosive passion with Donald. She popped the candy into her mouth, confident he had left it there. Maybe he didn’t go to work after all and was hiding in the house, ready to surprise her. The thoughts put more pep in her step as she turned to go to the bathroom. Natas could wait.
Entering the dining room, she saw a yellow object on the coffee table. A strange smell wafted in the air as if someone were cooking corn on the cob. She picked the candy up and read it.
“I WANT YOUR HEART.”
“You already have my heart.”
Excited that he probably had a very pleasant surprise for her, she started to look around, hoping to see more of the things and anxious to see what they would say. Seeing no more of the hearts, she entered the bathroom. On the counter to her right next to the commode, she saw a brown heart. She thought it strange that the bath curtains were closed.
The smell of shrimp entered her nose. She picked the candy off the counter and read it.
“DIE FOR ME.”
This made no sense and if he meant it to be a joke, it wasn’t funny. She tossed the heart into the waste basket. Then she thought how they’d had a fierce keep-one-eye-open-as-you-sleep fight last night with him ending up sleeping on the couch. The jig seemed to be up, and he swore he had been cuckolded, although she vehemently denied it. She loved him dearly. But the temptation to be with Natas was just too strong for her to resist.
On the other side of the sink she spotted another heart, this time red. She smelled a ghostly scent that reminded her of lobster as she retrieved the candy.
“LOOK BEHIND U.”
Her ears on high alert, she looked in the mirror to see if he were behind her. All she saw was a dark form through the brownish curtains.
“Donald?”
Both arms outstretched, she grabbed the shower curtain and slid it across the tub. A shriek left her lips.
Facing her was her “boyfriend.” He pointed to her chest, and she watched in horror as her heart tore through her chest heading for his outstretched hands.
“You are heartless,” Donald had said last night, the last thing she thought before collapsing.
The resident of Sandusky, Ohio currently scores assessment papers for Pearson Measurements. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Space and Time, Martian Wave, Disturbed, and the Anthology of Hate, Fantasy Short Stories Book 2, Trail of Tears The Haunted Life, Alien Dimensions, and Drabble Harvest anthologies, His book, When the Mushrooms Come, will be published in February.
Published 2/14/19