text: “Charlotte, I need my pills!” He exclaimed. His throat was coarse and the words hurt him but when he heard no reply, he forced out another few syllables, “Pills, Dammit!” As always, there was nothing but darkness; and he was used to it. In fact, being blind had helped to hone his other senses, to an extent - which is why he felt his heart rate settle slightly when he heard gentle footsteps approaching from his left. Holding up one frail, wrinkled palm, he awaited the delivery of his heart medication. Without it, he ran the risk of cardiac arrest any time he got overly excited. Mind you, there hadn’t been much of that over the last few weeks. Charlotte wasn’t speaking to him, and barely stayed in the same room as him anymore. His entertainment came from audio programs and reading - he’d grown accustomed to brail over the years, but he would never get used to his wife being upset with him. “Where were you?” he asked, his hand still floating in front of him. “Were you cleaning out the cellar? That god awful smell is still running amuck through the whole house!” He'd chosen the words carefully to bait his wife into replying, but as he had come to expect, she did not. When he felt the pills drop into his hand his heart sunk a bit too. There was a time when she would sit with him. Hold his hand in hers while they talked about his favorite horses until he'd swallowed his medication. Had they really fallen so far? “How long do I have to suffer, Char?” He pleaded - being as forthcoming as possible with his tone to convey the true hurt he was feeling. Nothing; the footsteps wandered slowly in the opposite direction. “Well to hell with you then!” He roared, instantly regretting it both because of this strange new pain in his throat, and because of guilt. For just under a week now, it felt like his esophagus was on fire whenever he used his vocal chords, and even when he swallowed. She didn’t deserve such harsh words anyway; after all, it was his fault they weren’t speaking. About a week prior they had a disagreement about her work in the cellar. She was spending far too much time down there, working on some private endeavor she refused to tell him about. She was seventy-four years old, what need did she have for mysterious hobbies? He'd given up on betting on the horses weeks ago! And now the smell, that pungent, relentless odour - it was unbearable. It had come only a few days after he’d snapped on her for keeping secrets from him. The last words they shared were him calling her foul names, and her demanding that he stay out of the cellar altogether. Not like that was a problem, he could barely stay on his feet for longer than a few minutes at a time, and stairs were definitely out of the question. This last week he’d been sleeping on the couch, essentially bathing in the stench of whatever the hell she had brought into the house. There was no point in wasting his energy to get to the electronic stair-lift, just to get upstairs and have her ignore him some more. He never should have yelled at her. Maybe he would skip his pills, induce a heart attack just so he could hear her voice again when she called the ambulance. Just so he could feel her embrace him as they waited for the EMT's to arrive. That was if she even cared about him anymore. At least she still gave him his medication, but he missed her touch - missed the pleasant feeling of her soft hands on his skin. And she always gave the most loving kisses. Oh how he missed her lips. “Charlotte,” he called out, “I miss you.” He felt a single tear touch his cheek when she didn’t reply. Time passed and he finished the last few pages of his audiobook and when he took his headphones out he heard the sound of metal scraping against stone - he discerned that it was coming from the basement, but couldn’t begin to fathom when she was doing. He prayed, whatever it was, she was dealing with the smell. He didn’t know how much longer he could live in that house. Lonely, fragile (to say the least), and forced to inhale her dastardly creation day after day? It was too much. He was about to turn on a TV program and take a nap when heard a crash below him: glass breaking. Instantly he was reminded of the evening just after Charlotte had decided to not speak with him. In the middle of the night he’d awoken to strange sounds, and his wife wasn’t in the bed with him. He’d nearly gone into shock from the panic - not being able to see when you’re experiencing fear is about as terrifying as it gets; but after a while he felt her weight press down beside him once again, and thought nothing more of it as he was just happy she had returned. She might not be talking to him, but at least having her presence there was something. However, even that had soured over the last week. Oh, how he longed for her touch. “Everything okay down there?” he called, his throat scratching with pain. “Want me to come--“. He couldn’t finish the sentence because he erupted into a coughing fit. For a time he was unable to catch his breath because he was too busy barking up air, each burst seeming to tear open parts of his throat. Bending over to see if it would help, he brought his hand to his mouth and felt warm liquid spatter across his palm with the worst of the coughs. He didn’t need his eyes to discern the contents of the sticky, wetness. “Charlotte!” he cried through agony. “I need help!” The coughing came and went intermittently, but his heart-rate was soaring as the pressure of each violent convulsion of his lungs escaped through his half-open mouth. His face was hot, and he felt his knees quivering before he fell over onto the floor, barely able to avoid cracking his forehead off the table. Luckily he’d known where it was, as he knew where everything was in the house, so he managed to fall just in between the table and the couch, where he placed one hand on the ground to prevent him from going all the way down. “Help!” he cried. “Dammit, woman” he hacked again and again. “Where are you?” At last he heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs from the cellar and for the slightest moment his fear subsided. Not only that, he felt butterflies floating in his gut for just a few seconds when he realized his wife still cared about him. She wasn’t going to let him die just because he was an old bastard who never treated her right. At last he felt a palm settle on the flat of his sweater-covered back, as another roughly latched onto his wrist. Finally, after what had felt like eternity, his wife had come back to him; he could feel her touch once again. In an effort to assist her in helping him off the ground, he brought his right hand up to meet her forearm and grasped onto the thick muscle there. His heightened sense of touch also allowed him to feel hundreds of fine hairs curling in different directions across her skin. Only she didn’t have arm hair, and the skin there wasn’t soft like he was used to. Where he expected just softness and bone, he felt thick muscly flesh. A resurgence in his rising heart-rate sent a sharp pain up his left arm, but he couldn’t react. He was being lifted off the ground now, and felt his back being flopped across two strong arms now. He tried to speak but the pain in his throat was too much. He couldn’t even scream. Heat rose in his ears, and soon they were ringing with pain. The agony running down his left side increased and a sudden bland taste of coppery nothingness overwhelmed his pallet. When a thick oily substance leaked out from his mouth he tasted nothing, but the hideous aroma of the basement was suddenly so strong he almost didn’t notice the bile at all. The last thing he heard before the ringing in his ears became too great was heavy breathing that he did not recognize; and the sure sound of boots connecting with the cellar stairs. Then all that was left was his sense of touch. As he felt his body forcibly descend, the pain in his arm crept further upwards, rising to a point where he was sure he would pass out. But just when he appeared to be losing consciousness he felt a swift breeze cross his face, and the arms beneath his back retracted. The butterflies came back, but this time because he was falling. He expected to land upon the cool concrete of the cellar floor, but instead he felt his frail form collide unevenly across something equally cold, but soft to the touch. With no other senses available to him, he used his hands to feel the thing he’d landed upon. His mouth was burning, his heart was about to explode in his chest, his insides were leaking out of him and that putrid smell was on top of him now. Rather, he was on top of it. Everything became clear when he touched his wife’s soft, wrinkled hands. Wrapped tightly in her embrace was a wooden carving of a horse.