Strobe

A short story about Karma. Contains mild contextual cursing.

         
         Bob resented his neighbour Jacks' freedom.


         Bob had a wife, Mary, that he couldn't stand.

         She would sit on the couch, watching TV, absent mindedly gouging
        out bits of the wet sock-felt that coagulated under the corners
        of her toe nails.
   
         She would hold the little treasure up to one eye, staring at it
        as if it were a minuscule crystal ball.

         Then, she would give it a quick sniff.
 
         When she decided there was nothing new in the stink-ball, she
        would flick the tip of her finger two or three times until the
        sticky wad let go, arcing away to... who knew where?  
       
         It wasn't just that he found her gross, Mary was a cold harpy.
        She was never open to even the thought of a little "playing around".
        Instead, she would just laugh in his face, then walk away, slowly
        shaking her head.
   

         Most of the time, they just ignored each other.


         Oh, but Bobs' neighbour, Jack!  He lived the good life!

         Jack had never married.  He had no wife to stop him from doing
        what he wanted, when he wanted to do it.  

         No wife to nag and complain at him about.... everything!

         If Jack wanted to go to the bar, he just went to the bar.

         No woman could just shut down his sex life out of spite.
         
         If sex got tiring with one woman, Jack would just start dating
        someone new.

         Bob found it intolerable to listen as Jack stood smiling, telling him
        story after story of wild parties and wilder women.
      
         Resentment wasn't a strong enough word.


         So...                    


         When Jack had first moved into the house next door, he had
        confided in Bob, telling him about his epilepsy.

         Jack told Bob, even though medications had kept the seizures under
        control for years, he still lived in dread, never knowing when,
        where or if, the seizures might return.


         Bob was an a*****e.  

        
         One day, instead of driving straight home from work, Bob
        drove to a camera store.

         He talked to a young sales clerk, asking her for the brightest
        strobe light they had.
          
         She enthusiastically explained the pros and cons of a half dozen
        different brands of strobe lights, until Bob told her again, he just              
        wanted to buy the brightest strobe they had.

         She realised she was wasting her time trying to school him.  So, she walked
        over to the shelf, snatched up the first strobe light she had shown him.
 
         She poked the box at him, her pretty face showing how painfully bored
        she was with Bob.


         "This."       


         When Bob got home, he went right to the laundry room. It was the
        perfect spot; the window in the laundry was directly opposite
        Jacks bedroom window.

         In ten minutes, Bob had the strobe light mounted on its' tripod,
        and pushed up to the open window.
        
         Bob brought in a chair from the kitchen, put it down by the light
        and sat, waiting in the dark for Jack to get home; hopefully with his
        arm around yet another conquest.  


         Bob didn't need to wait long.


         Jack turned into his drive way. The cars headlights washed across
        the side of Bobs' house, for a moment shining on his smirking face
        framed in the window.  Then it was dark again as Jack pulled
        into the garage.

         A few minutes later, (Damn, he worked fast!), he watched, barely
        able to see through the slates of the window blinds, as Jack backed
        into the bedroom, pulling the woman with him.

         Bob could just make out the two embracing, then melting down onto
        the bed.


         The bedroom light went out.


          Bob bided his time, waiting to be fairly sure that Jack and the
        woman were in the middle of their love making.

          A fleeting thought of how Jack looked right then, making love,
        made Bob uncomfortable, so he reached down and flipped the
        strobe light switch to on.


         Blisteringly bright white flashes lit the entire wall of Jacks house.


         The sudden pulses of light filled the laundry room, blinding Bob.

         The strobe blinked insanely fast. On! Off! On! Off! On! Off!
       accompanied by a loud click and pop every time the light cycled.
       
         Then, quicker than Bob could start to imagine what effect the
        strobe light was having on Jack, he heard a single high pitched "Yelp!"
        of pain.


         Bob felt his stomach turn.

 
         Too late, he began to think he may have gone too far with his "prank".

         Blindly, he groped for the strobe lights' switch, instead burning a finger
        on the hot lens.

         Unable to find the switch, he instead slide his hand along the wall till
        he found the power cord, ripping the plug from the socket.


         The room went dark and oddly silent.


         Bobs' eyes slowly began to adjust to the low light coming in from
        the hall.

         Panicked, he fumbled, trying to stuff the hot strobe light back into its'
        box, trying to fold down the tripod at the same time, before....

         The door bell rang.


         S**t.   


         Well, nothing he could do about it now.

         Bob half expected Jack, red faced with anger, and without a word,
        to punch him right in the nose.

         He went to the door and swung it open.

         Bobs' jaw dropped. "What the...!?"

         Jack stood undressed in the doorway, propping up a naked Mary, her face
        twisted in pain.

         "I think I dislocated her hip."
        
       






          

Reviews

[Nusquam Esse]

Hahaha, that sure showed him! Clearly Mary isn't a harpy to everyone, there must be something special about Bob... ;) Two things to note. #1, I think the beginning may be a bit choppy compared to the rest of the story; likely because you weren't as into it as you started. Your style of breaking down the lines is unconventional, but it works, at least in the second half. Just try and smooth it out a bit at the beginning, I 'almost' lost interest because of the disjointed nature of it. #2, you are misusing apostrophes. When using them possessively, they are only placed after the 's' if the possessor is plural. In this case, it should just be "Jack's". Cheers, I enjoyed this one; I definitely prefer short stories and flash fiction over any other literature.

[g d chalupsky]

Thank you.

Yes, the beginning chunk is chunky. I tend to rush to ink the basic premise of a story, then return to smooth out the structure afterwards. Once the gist is down, though, the following segments flow a bit more complete, the first time round.

I am with my writing, like a jaguar with a fresh kill. I'll drag the carcase into a tree, gorge on its' flesh, then return again and again to nibble down the rest till only the bones remain.

As to #2.

It's's a foible of mine. I will forever use apostrophes in two ways, to replace missing letters or to jam a thing up against its possessor.

To quote the new bard, M. Cyrus....

"And we can't stop
And we won't stop
We run things, things don't run we
Don't take nothing from nobody
Yeah, yeah"

[Woody]

haha I absolutely love this one g d. I love a story with a twist. and I was a million miles from guessing the ending. your narration is very good. I very much enjoyed the read.

[g d chalupsky]

Thank you for taking the time to read this. And, thank you for the kind words.