From Dark Places by Newman Emma

Author:Newman, Emma [Newman, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Anthology, Horror, Dark Fantasy, Short Fiction, Short Stories, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: eMergent Publishing
Published: 2011-04-04T04:30:00+00:00

THE LETTER

Dear Michael,

The dog is in the oven. Don’t open it, it’s too late. I’m sorry

God that sounds so rubbish, but it’s true, really. Between accidentally cooking the dog and finding those letters, it’s been the most awful day. But the two are entirely unrelated, I promise. I wouldn’t kill Bertie just because I found out you’re a cheating piece of pond scum.

You probably won’t believe me, seeing as he chewed my favourite shoes only last week, but I forgave him. He hasn’t didn’t have any higher cognitive functions to help him control his base urges. He saw the shoe, wanted to chew the shoe and chewed it.

You on the other hand, as a functioning, intelligent human being, do have higher cognitive functions perfectly capable of over-riding your base drives. You just choose not to use them that way. You see a tart, want to shag the tart and shag her. That’s why you should be in the oven and not Bertie. But life is unfair, justice only happens in (modern) fairytales and gits like you get to keep on going whilst poor little doggies accidentally get cooked.

I suppose I should explain how I baked the dog, but I’m tempted not to. I like the thought of you reading this and wanting to find out, then reaching the end without discovering how it happened. Then there’ll be nothing for you to do but go and get the poor little sod out of there and wonder—for the rest of your sad life—how on earth it happened.

Can I be that cruel?

I think I can, seeing as I know you’ll devote more of those higher cognitive functions to solving that puzzle than the one of how I found the guts to finally leave you. It might cross your mind briefly one day as you zip up your fly and flush the toilet. “She’ll be back tomorrow,” you’ll think, not seeing any metaphorical significance in watching the water swirl away. But I won’t.

You may also be curious about the location of your latest manuscript. There’s a clue in the previous paragraph. It’s not the Times cryptic crossword I know, but I’m in a rush and can’t spend all morning in a kitchen that smells of roasted pet, writing to the likes of you. Don’t bother with the computer, I dropped coffee on it. That was deliberate, I’ll admit that. Not like the dog. When you calm down, you’ll realise how well I taught you to keep multiple back ups of your work.

You know the funniest thing about all of this? Over the years when people found out you were my husband, they always thought you based those raunchy scenes in your pulp novels on our liaisons in the bedroom. I never once said you were more imaginative in front of your computer than you ever were in front of my body, and your fingers were only good for typing. It seems that was misplaced loyalty.

So now I’m off to see my solicitor. I’m taking everything that’s mine, and I’ll get half of everything that’s left.

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