Howard & Joan

oward was convinced that Joan had been seeing another man. Granted, their seventh year of marriage was a difficult one, but they had always found solace in each others arms, crying together and making love after every fight. The more discordant the altercation, the more passionate the coupling. A few months ago, however, as the confrontations became less frequent, so did their sexual encounters. Joan had submitted somewhat reluctantly to his advances at first, but she had begun to refuse completely any chance of congress. Howard's entire carnal activity had been reduced to lonely bathroom masturbation.

Of course, they had experienced dry runs before, but these could almost always be traced to the combined stresses of their respective jobs. This time was different. Joan had left her place of employment two months ago, and had taken to sleeping in while Howard prepared his breakfast and left for work. Dinner was now the only meal they shared, and Joan often paused between mouthfuls to stare off into space. The look in her eyes resembled that of a love struck schoolgirl, and Howard knew that it could mean only one thing.

For weeks he had been haunted by visions of his wife in the arms of some Adonis, performing acts of unbridled lust in the bed in which they once consummated their marriage. He could hardly sleep at night for the thought of what horrors of adultery may have occurred where he lay, and his work had suffered because of his exhaustion and deteriorating constitution, not to mention his preoccupation with matters of Joan's hypothetical infidelity.

However, despite his certainty that Joan was having an affair, and its effect on his well-being, he had not yet confronted her on the subject, and he did not know why. He wondered if he was afraid of hearing the truth from her lips, hearing her say to his face that she no longer loved him. Sometimes, he felt a horrible sense of guilt, that she could be innocent and would be devastated by his scurrilous accusations. Perhaps he was simply a coward, hoping disconsolately that it would all go away, and that he would one day return home to their fifth floor apartment to find her love for him stronger than ever.

Finally, out of pain, frustration, and despair, he had resolved to catch the cheating wench red handed, and when he did, to tear the muscular body of her youthful paramour limb from sinewy limb. That morning, Howard awoke as usual at six o'clock and left Joan sleeping peacefully in bed. He showered, shaved, and dressed himself in a sober grey suit. After reading the paper over two slices of rye toast and a coffee, he left for work. The guard at the gate waved as he drove his late model Honda Accord into the underground station, but looked puzzled when he turned the car around and headed toward the exit. Howard smiled and told him that he'd left his briefcase at home, then headed out of the car park and pointed the Honda in the direction of the apartment block. He was going to startle the lecherous pair, and bring an end to his suffering, once and for all.

Walter stood on the balcony in his boxer shorts. He had just completed his two hundredth push-up of the morning and was admiring his pectorals as he prepared to tackle his weights. The view from the building was spectacular, for although the flat that he had just moved into was only on the sixth floor, the hillside dropped away dramatically from the foot of the apartment block, and the unnaturally clean air allowed superb visibility of the surrounding suburbs, all the way to the harbour. He surveyed the vista below and flexed his abdominals proudly.

Since High School, Walter had given up competitive swimming to concentrate on his body-building full time, and his job at the gym had finally seen his promotion to fitness instructor. Consequently, his pay had increased to a level that enabled him to afford to live in such comfortable surrounds. His roster entitled him to four solid hours of morning exercise, as he was responsible for the after work fitness of bloated executives and self-conscious secretaries. The magnificent view from his balcony provided an excellent location for a workout.

He picked up his dumbbells, took a deep breath, and commenced work on his biceps. After several sets of curls, the decreased amount of oxygen in his brain caused Walter's mind to wander. The exercise program was becoming too easy, he needed to up the ante if he was to do anything more than merely maintain his current level of fitness. His attention shifted from the weights in his hands to the vastly more challenging bench press inside. Excited at the prospect of testing his own absurdly ample limits even further, he finished his bicep curls with considerable speed and vigour, before rushing inside to the second bedroom that served as his personal gym. As he slid onto the bench, his head began to clear and an idea struck him: why not share the moment with the rest of the world?

Walter stood up and carried his beloved weights carefully onto the balcony. Affixing a ten kilogram disc to either end of his already overloaded barbells, he quivered with anticipation. He steadied himself and leaned forward, gripping the bar firmly with both hands. He paused for a moment to take in three lungfuls of crisp morning air, then heaved the weight up onto his chest, letting out a mighty bellow that frightened an onlooking pigeon. The expectation was almost too much for him to bear, but he managed to stifle his brimming emotions and prepare himself for the final, orgiastic movement. With a massive burst of energy he thrust the barbells high into the air, enjoying a moment of unparalleled rapture before realising that he had overbalanced. Frantically, he tried to correct his posture, but his efforts failed horribly as he toppled over the balcony of his brand new apartment and toward the impressive scenery below.

As he strode out of the elevator and down the corridor, Howard briefly considered kicking the door in for added dramatic impetus. It was a tempting but overstated touch, so he ultimately reneged on the proposition and drove the key into the lock. Jerking the door open with much aplomb, he tore into the flat screaming, "Where is that little bastard? I'll kill him, I swear I'll kill him!"

Joan rushed out of the bedroom in the fine satin sheet that she had wrapped hastily around herself and tried to restrain her husband. "No, Howard!" she cried, "There's no-one here but me!" Despite her pleas to the contrary, he proceeded to throw open and dispose onto the carpet the contents of every cupboard in their home, rabidly pronouncing infinite variations on his opening theme. All the while, Joan tried desperately to assure him of her innocence and of the absence of any third party.

Suddenly, the cursing ceased. There, on their balcony, was a physically superfluous yet visibly frightened young man clad only in his underwear. Joan, whose protective sheet had removed itself during the preceding uproar, stood naked on the cashmere rug in the living room as she attempted stop her hate ravaged husband from lunging viciously through the screen door.

"Howard, no! You're making a big mistake...!"

Walter was too busy praising the fortuitous combination of efficacious reflex and upper body strength that had caused him to release the barbells, catch hold of the balustrade and swing himself onto the platform below in one swift movement, to notice the approaching form of Howard. As their bodies collided, Walter felt an all-too-familiar flipping sensation before plunging rapidly downward for the second time that morning.

Several floors later, Walter looked up at the tree that had broken his fall, and was justifiably amazed that he could still do so. There was an awful, nagging pain in both legs and he suspected that more than one rib had been smashed. All the same he was glad to be breathing, although each gasp tore through his torso like hellfire . He concluded that in a perverse, off-the-wall way, this was one of the luckiest days of his life.

When Howard saw that the plunge had failed to snuff the life out of his wife's extramarital affair, he charged back inside and grabbed all manner of available ammunition. Walter raised his one good arm to protect himself from the barrage of household objects that rained down in his general direction. Joan watched helplessly as her husband emptied their home of armfuls of books, photo albums, pots, pans, glasses, compact discs, the dinner set her parents had given them as a wedding present, the toaster, the popcorn maker, the jug, both percolators, the clock radio, several coathangers, that morning's ironing, the colour television, the phone table, the typewriter, a magazine rack, some hair care products, an atlas, a beanbag, picture frames, souvenirs, cake dishes, two drawers, the bin, and various other domestic and cultural ephemera.

With Walter still writhing about on the ground, and no small objects left to throw, Howard turned his attention to the furniture. He tried tossing a pair of dining chairs, but they arced out too far into the morning air and missed Walter completely. He tried the coffee table, the empty bookshelf and an armchair, but all failed to strike their target. When he started to drag their mahogany chest out onto the balcony, Joan ran toward him.

"Stop this madness, please, Howard. It's all a horrible mistake," she cried, but he shoved her aside.

"Shutup, you whore, you harlot, you jezebel! I'll deal with you later," he yelled. Howard heaved the chest up onto the railing. Grinning maniacally at the insane poetry of his last statement, he prepared himself to finally slay his wife's adulterer. In hatred, fear and desperation, she flung herself at her husband, who, flailing and grappling wildly, fell, with the box, over the railing, to his demise five storeys below.

From the balcony, alone, shivering naked in the breeze, Joan surveyed the carnage. As the chest impacted fatally with the weightlifter, it had fallen open, and, next to Howard's broken body, and that of the unfortunate Walter, lay the perfect form of her beloved David, now, tragically, no more.

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