Short Story: Turkish Delight

Short Story: Turkish Delight

‘Oh man I’m starving, can’t wait to eat this,’ Melody said trying not to salivate.

‘Well, it better be good, had to wait long enough,’ Ryan grumbled.

‘Stop moaning will you?’ Melody asked over the siren of a passing police car.

They dodged traffic back to the white Vivaro. He handed her the take-away as he pressed the unlock button on the van key. Nothing happened. She skipped round the front, pulled open the door, wobbled up onto the passenger seat and smirked ‘not like you to forget to lock it.’

Sneering Ryan said, ‘just wanted to be like you.’

‘Just wanted to be like you,’ said Melody mimicking him, child ego in control while her adult self fixed its dented armour. ‘Can’t even afford this,’ she said, her top lip curled in a snarl. She sat scowling out the window as he pulled away from the kerb.

‘Shut up,' Ryan muttered under his breath as they drove off up the street, out towards the dual carriageway.

They drove home in silence. Melody fantasised about cold, cutting scenarios she could inflict on Ryan for her own enjoyment. The silence in the van was interupted intermittently by the odd police siren and blue flashing light. In his discomfort Ryan switched on the radio. The local station DJ said something about a danger to the public, but Melody was too caught up in the acts of emotional torture playing out in her minds' eye to hear. Ryan was oblivious to anything else other than his own difficulty in dealing with the atmosphere that acted like a boa constricter to any other thoughts his mind might decide to think.

Ten minutes later they passed the long-standing 'For Sale' sign at the bottom of the large garden, the van followed the lights that accompanied the sweeping drive up to the turning circle behind the house. There was a dull thud from the back of the van as Ryan turned off the ignition. Wits deafened and dulled, Ryan and Melody didn’t hear it.

They left the strained atmosphere of the van which followed them into the house. Melody put the take-away on the work-top and made her way upstairs to get changed. Privately she geared herself up for yet another night of good food, nice wine and strained company with her soon to be estranged husband. Ryan nipped into the bathroom. They arrived in the kitchen to dish up their meal almost simultaneously.

Less than a minute later an escaped convict clinically washed his hands at Melody and Ryan's kitchen sink before dishing up the Turkish take-away. A bottle of Merlot breathed on the work-top. He found a glass with a butterfly charm in the cupboard next to the oven. ‘Strange place to keep your glasses,’ he mused quietly. He poured some wine and had a sniff, ‘why not?’ he smiled, toasting the two fresh corpses that lay bleeding from sliced throats, all over the beautiful hard wood floor.

Hovering half way up the wall Ryan groaned, ‘that blood is going to stain the floor.’

Melody flew around the convict’s head who was now sitting at the kitchen table, ‘is that all you can think about, the bloody floor?!!’

‘Even now you can’t be civil...’ Ryan sighed inwardly. ‘I heard that!’ Melody screeched in frustration.

The convict, his taste buds tangoing on the Turkish food, shivered at an imperceptible shift in the air. He stopped chewing, and in dog-like fashion, tilted his head to listen intently. A slight frown creased his forehead. From across the room, he returned the gaze of the listless corpses lying in pools of blood, swallowed the bolus of food and addressed them directly, ‘Sorry? Did you say something?’ Sniggering uncomfortably, he returned to the meal but his appetite was waning and the atmosphere in the house was begining to crush him, like claustrophobia.

It was like being back in the jail.

Ryan and Melody watched him in dismay as their grave situation became apparent. Melody could hear Ryan's thoughts. Ryan could sense what Melody was feeling. They were stuck together, eternally tied up in each others introverted senses with no escape. They didnt even get to experience the delight of their take away. Their taste buds were dead. Like them.

In death they had less to appreciate than they did in life. It dawned on them that life offered them choices they had been too stubborn to make, or refused to make for the wrong reasons. The regretted that now. They regretted in death, what they should have done in life. Instead of trying to find a way to save their marriage or go their seperate ways they now had to find a way to cope with each other in death. The convict finished his Turkish food but it had lost it's delight.