Freedom of Choice

A short story

— The fuck! — D was angry and he knew that cooking while angry always lead to awful results.

He was stirring the content of the pan, hoping it would dry. Curry chicken. The sauce was still too much watery.

— Nothing to talk about? C’mon. I’m working my ass out all day. Four hours in the morning, four in the afternoon. And, in the middle, I’m cooking for you two. I’m trying. Do you wanna talk? Then tell me fucking something already. I promise I’ll answer.

The chicken was not enough so he had to solve the problem by adding some chicken liver. Not the best for his taste. He tried to cover the smell with garlic, more curry, hot chili, black pepper, and some chicken fat.

The pieces of liver were cooking in the watery sauce and leaking a blood-like fluid. Enough to end his appetite.

— You don’t talk to me. You don’t seem to be interested in what I say, yet you’re complaining about not having someone adult to talk with. I’m feeling alone just as you do. I’m tired just like you.

D dried the sweat on his forehead with a piece of cloth.

— And now this fucking chicken doesn’t cook. What do you want from me?

The chicken was just about done. He turned off the induction stove e brought the pan to the table. The rice was getting cold on the plate, and sticky. The watery sauce flooded the plate soaking the rice. The chicken and liver pieces quickly followed.

Not a hint of garlic, nor chili nor chicken. Just curry and liver. Not something to be happy about.

D finished his dinner and cried quietly.

Every night he played the same scene over and over again. The last argument he had with his wife.

Well, the last argument she had with him. He never replied. That last time was not different.

He always had a bunch of words spiraling in his mind, tangling with each other till they couldn’t get out.

Every single time they fought, it was more like she was fighting and he just kept taking hits. Not a punch back.

Until she didn’t fight anymore.

D was working, as usual, on his laptop eating chips from a bag. There was a message from his boss updating the tasks for the day. He put the bag on the right of his keyboard and took a napkin from his left to clean his oily hands. He threw the napkin over the bag and started reading the email.

— Lov — that’s how he called his wife — can you please throw it away?

D couldn’t stand the sight of trash piled up here and there around the house — C’mon! How many times did I tell you not to mix them?

Paper, plastic, and organic trash. For his wife was just trash. She just couldn’t get her head around it, so she just put everything together and waited for D to separate them.

— I don’t get how you can’t remember which is which.

The tasks for the day were easy. Just a couple of hours to complete them, so he had the rest of the day free to think of how easy could have been talking to his wife about how he hated the mixed piles of trash, here and there around the house.

D had many hobbies and for each of them a more or less big grudge against the world for not having time for pursuing them.

— Lov, you know how I love it and how small time I have for it. — That time D. was strangely resolute.

— I just need to finish this. Give me time, please.

Every day, after work, D underwent a fight between him wanting to spend time with his wife and him wanting to do personal stuff. It was an unbearably violent fight since he suffered anyway. Feeling guilty towards his wife, or himself. It was always hard to tell which side won the fight, day by day.

It was hard.

The emptiness of his free time now felt so thick. It was like right after 6 pm he began walking underwater. Slow, heavy. Restricted. Now that there was no reason for such a fight anymore, his free time was more like a restricted time. More like conviction.

Paying time for his debt.

Right after 6 pm, his lungs worked at half capacity, making his conviction paced with innumerable quick, short breaths.

— I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t help but think I played my part in this. Not that I’m the reason why, but maybe I could have been the reason why-not…

The only real person with whom D talked was R, his brother-in-law. It was also the only time he talked in dialogue, instead of just a soliloquy. R was not a big talker, but he shared the same pain and sorrow as D and always replied.

— You know, D, we will never know the reason why, nor if there were any reason why-not at all. I know you suffer, as I do. I know you blame her one day and yourself the day after, but there’s no blame. And no one to blame. I’m sure your feelings are good, you loved her and you wished you made things better. You made her happier. You wished you could do something to avoid all of this. But she took her life. It wasn’t you. I was not your hand, it was hers. Her choice. Her damn, fucking choice. She thought about it, ponder it. And as a result, she decided, by her own will, to take her life. To end it.

D’s eyes were wet and bordered in red. He listened to those words a thousand times already, he still needed them but still couldn’t fully accept them. Sitting on his bed, he leaned on the wall, while lowering the arm holding the phone.

On the other side, R continued with the same words he already had spoken so many times, hoping to heal his brother in law heart.

— It was her choice, D. Shouldn’t we just give her that? At least, just that?

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