Monday Night

It was the radish that left the bitter taste in his mouth, not the note Yvonne had left on the table. Ray didn’t even notice it until he finished the salad she’d left in the Frigidaire. Ever since he read it, he’d been trying to wash the bitterness away with Export, but the beer hadn’t worked. He switched to rye.

He looked at the letter, once more, just to be sure, but there was no mistake. She was leaving him for her boss. He downed the rye in one shot and went to pour another one, but the damn glass wouldn’t stay still on the table, and ended up rolling off onto the floor. Typical, really.

There must have been an earthquake, or something; the floor kept moving as he walked over to the sofa, but he made it and sat down, heavily. When the room stopped spinning, he leaned forward and flipped through the channels on the black and white TV. He was going to buy one of the colour ones with his tax refund but, right now, blowing it all on drink seemed like a good idea.

He watched Chet Huntley for a while. There was nothing on the news about an earthquake, just more about taxes and protests. He flipped the dial round through all seven channels, until he found an old movie about some guy who came back from the World War with both arms blow off. He left it on; at least that guy had a reason to feel worse than he did. Ray thought he should never have let Yvonne get a job, never let her get her own bank account. It was too late for any of that, now, though. 

He lit another Rothmans then held the lighter to the corner of her letter. The flame crept up the pink paper and turned it black. He let it fall on top of the overflowing ashtray.

--30-- 

The prompt was: It was the radish that left the bitter taste in his mouth. The passage turned into a little domestic drama set in the mid-60s, but I'm not sure why.