A Little Bad Luck

On Thursday we killed everyone, and it was every bit as wonderful as she had hoped. But on Friday, the first day of our perfect new life together, I woke up with a bad feeling.

Late morning sunlight slanted through arched balcony doors. I blinked at Marcia, sleeping next to me on a massive mahogany four-poster bed. She sprawled luxuriantly in silk and satin, her dark red hair spread on the pillow around her delicate, pouty face. Her mouth was slightly open, and she snored in that gentle, feminine way of hers, which I adore.

As I started to extract my right arm from under my pillow to sit up, my left arm flopped loosely, as if dead. I must've slept on it wrong, I realized, and had pinched the brachial nerve. In a moment I would experience the pins and needles of returning sensation.

But wait, I thought. If I was sleeping on my right side, why would my left arm be numb?  Hmm. Maybe my brain wasn't fully awake yet.

Under the circumstances, it would be a challenge to climb out of the soft bed without waking her. I really don't like to wake her. But I needed to urinate, and I wanted to examine my arm. And I was increasingly aware of a hard, rounded edge rubbing painfully against my neck, under my ear. My right hand reached up to grasp the offending object, which I recognized as a bottle of Obninsk Vodka, the expensive brand with the distinctive rectangular shape. I remembered its oily, decadent taste from the night before. We spilled half the first bottle while making love in every room of our magnificent new mansion.

Well, not literally every room. We skipped the dining room and kitchen because of the bodies there. An older couple, and their maid.

I reached out with my right hand to set the bottle on the polished nightstand as quietly as possible. Then I shifted onto my back to start getting up. Everything took a lot of effort, and I couldn't seem to work my left leg free of the satin sheets.

My whole left side felt strange, actually. The skin tone looked fine, but the arm was numb and floppy. Curious, I squeezed my left hand with my right, pinching the skin above the metacarpal bones. It was like touching a corpse. My heart rate accelerated.

Marcia stirred, opened one perfect green eye, and blinked at me. I tried to look casual.

“Morning, tiger,” she said.

“Morning, kitten,” I replied, giving her a lopsided smile.

She yawned and stretched until her limbs shuddered. Then in a single fluid motion she pounced onto my stomach, pinning me to the sheets.

“So, what will we do today?” She straddled my hips and grasped my shoulders, pushing me into the pillows, leaning forward so her auburn hair hung over my face.

“Can't watch TV,” she said. “There's nothing on. No sports, either. No Broadway shows or concerts. Congress isn't in session. No one's at war. No school today. Traffic's at a complete standstill. Nothing's happening.

“Listen to it.” She leaned back, raising her arms triumphantly, her emerald silk pajamas radiant in the golden sunlight.

There was no sound of a refrigerator, or air conditioning, or plumbing. No lawnmower down the street, no cars driving by, no planes flying overhead. Through the window I heard a noise that I finally realized must be a bird singing.

“They're all gone.” She gave me a quick, haven't-brushed-yet peck on the lips. “Bye-bye.”

“Yes,” I said, trying to feel my left hand. “We were extremely thorough.”

She leaned down and breathed into my ear. “It's all ours, baby. All of it.”

I liked the warm weight of her but was concerned about the circulation in my left leg.

“My perfect world,” she sighed, stroking my bald spot. “My perfect lover.”

“Get up,” I said, working my right hand free and gently pushing her away. “My leg is asleep.”

She rolled over to lie on her side, watching me. I slid off the bed and hopped to the bathroom on my right leg, which made her laugh.

When I finally hopped back out, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, picking her teeth with one perfect, polished red fingernail.

“What's the deal?” she asked.

“I fell asleep on the vodka bottle,” I told her. “It was under my neck, here.”

I leaned against the wall and tried to sound clinical, to show that I had things under control.

“It must've pressed against my carotid artery and limited the circulation. To the right side of my brain.”

I don't like to upset her.

“A little frontal and temporal lobe damage, that's all,” I said, with a reassuring wave of my right hand. “Motor and sensory region. You know. The right hemisphere is responsible for the left side of the body.”

“That's all?”

I wasn't sure what she meant.

“Well,” I ventured, “also melody. And emotional language. You know--metaphors, figures of speech, that sort of thing.”

I couldn't read her expression.

“The bird outside sounded strange, so I tried humming. In the bathroom.”

“I heard you,” she said.

“Anyway, that's what happened,” I finished, shrugging a shoulder. “A little bad luck.”

“A little bad luck?  That's your assessment?”

“Sure,” I said uncertainly.

“If this had happened yesterday, I could've taken you to a hospital.” She went to the dressing table and opened her handbag. “Bad luck.”

“Are you angry?” I really couldn't tell.

“You were the only one who ever understood me,” she said, turning back to me. “Every word, every mood, every look. You read me like a book. My perfect lover. My one and only. No more men after you, ever again. You were going to be the last one.”

Her words didn't make sense. “But I am, baby. I am. The others are all dead.”

She sighed and reached into the handbag.

“Yeah, that's not what I meant,” she said, raising the gun.