40 Percent Precipitation - a short story

As I sat on my sofa chair heated by the light falling from a window, I dozed off. Just minutes later, there was a loud knocking on the door, it woke me up.

I coughed to clear my throat. “Who’s this?”

“Phil!” A strange woman’s quaking voice called out. There was a pause. “Open the door.”

More knocking followed.

That strange woman’s voice, Wendy?

Wendy quaked with her voice from wherever she was. “It’s Marrie and Joeb.”

I placed my palms on my lap, stood up, and my left leg cracked. I stretched and reached the door. Opening the door, I found only Joeb. “Hee hee, you forgot someone."

Joeb stormed in with his shoulders raised and coiled and tossed his umbrella on the floor. His mouth formed a tiny circle and his eyes ran.  

“So, what gives?” I asked.

Joeb squinted his eyes, fixed his pants’ string, and frowned, “forty percent precipitation they say.”

“Who said what?” I dragged myself over a few steps, making a shuffling noise with my loafers.

Joeb crouched toward me, pulling his ear to hear better, “What?”

I fixed my thick magnifying glasses, and his ear hairs protruded nicely. “Did Marrie forget to trim them, again?”

“Who?” Joeb squinted, forming a sour face.

His breath reeked. I moved my arms in the air to diffuse it.

“Marrie, Joeb, I’ll be there in a minute,” Wendy called from the living room in her high-pitched, squeaky voice.

“Joeb forgot Marrie at home,” I replied. 

Joeb raised his hand, gesturing to let it go.

There was a shadow stretching on the wooden floor from the living room, coming from Wendy as she approached the room. She wore an apron; I could see all the food stains. She took off her hairband, leaving her grey hair fizzy. Having a mess of sorts in her eyes, she pursed her lip. “Yup, I knew this was coming.”

By that time Joeb and I sat on the couch and there was another knock on the door.

“Wendy, this yours,” I announced.

Wendy was instantly at the door greeting Marrie.

Joeb’s eyes looked disengaged from his environment, he focused on something in the middle of the air almost.

Marrie spat as she yapped. Her veins pruned; her eyes pierced at anything she looked.

“Happened forty years ago,” Joeb squeezed his words, with emphasis on every syllable. Then he added, “Before we even met.”

Marrie kept pacing, spitting words across the room, throwing her hands in the air to seem like a taller person than she was.

I heard a few coherent words from Marrie.

“Affair with Wendy,” Marrie exclaimed.

Wendy stormed upstairs and slammed the door behind her.

“I want a divorce,” Marrie squealed at Joeb and ran upstairs after Wendy.

Joeb and I exchanged glances, and then he went home. I knew he said the truth.

 What will happen next? Share your opinion in the comments below. Or, come up with an ending and send it to info @ sparrow-publishing.com and it may appear on sparrow-publishing.com.