By: Sonia E.
Date Submitted: 1/2/2007
Last Updated: 4/16/2007
Genre: Literature & Fiction » Short Stories & Anthologies
Words: 469
Rating:

Marriage is an unusual arrangement between two people. These random people believe they are attracted enough to each other physically to live with each other for the rest of their lives, which, unfortuantely for some, can be a very long time.

When Caroline and Daniel got married it was, as in all beginnings, a wonderful union between two people. Caroline was a beautiful woman, all his friends had told him so, and when they married Daniel thought he could forgive her anything, but, little by little, like all things matrimonial, he changed. Daniel would get annoyed with Caroline because despite her beauty, she was loud and racous. Her raspy laughter would reverberate though the houses of their friends and he was mortified by the sound.
"Why do you have to laugh so loudly? No one wants to hear you laughing.", he would exclaim, the irritation in his voice bristling and crawling all over his skin. She would ignore his angry words, as all good wives should, and continue to laugh the strident laugh that filled every empty space. She would laugh with their friends until he began to believe she was in reality a very spiteful woman and every time he looked at her he would be filled with an inexplicable rage and the depth of his emotion stunned him. If anyone had asked him why he was so angry he could not have explained as he did not undertand it himself. The only thing he did know was that his anger was a living thing, like a child, his child, and he protected it, fed it until it was a sentient being. This living, breating emotion began to take control of his behavior and he allowed it to mistreat his wife. It was disrespectful and cruel and although Caroline was a simple person, she felt it's malice.

As so often happens in a marriage that is disminishing, the retreat from each other began and the battle lines betwen them were drawn, Daniel in his position and Caroline in hers. There would be no peace until everything was divided between them, friends, effects, all their assets. "This is mine, that is yours." Everything was divided as though they were casting lots.

On the day they went to court to make this division official, Daniel sat waiting in a small, windowless room. He found himself suffocated, infuriated to hear Caroline laughing with the mediator. This was serious business, he thought, and yet she was still laughing. What Daniel could not undertand was that laughter, like anger, is a living thing. And cackling and cawing like a blackbird, her laughter penetrated the walls of the humble room and flew joyfully into Daniel's ears.

The Eclectic Pen - Freedom for the Blackbird

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