Tuesday:
The morning after Lydia tells him, ‘it isn’t working’, he sees it. A furtive, scurrying thing, dragging its long muscular tail behind it. As she restacks the incorrectly loaded dishwasher, Lydia fulminates about vermin, then says he must ‘deal with it’. He thought they were just fine.
Wednesday:
He borrows her car, drives to the hardware store, and comes back with something to end things. Painlessly, the shopkeeper had said, with a slight
smirk. Lydia says, ‘who cares?’ He’s read that peanut butter is good. Lydia loathes the stuff, won’t have it in the house. He baits the trap with a mixture of her granola and tahini paste, congratulating himself on his inventiveness. Lydia rolls her eyes. At first, there’s a frisson of anticipation.
Thursday:
He goes to inspect the Premier Rodent Solution.
‘Lydia! There’s a bird in the trap!’
‘Magpie,’ she says.
He feels a flash of irritation as her inflection makes it evident she is informing him. He mouths, ‘I knew that’.
‘Oh!’
‘It’s alive.’
‘Get rid of it.’
‘What?’
‘Not like that. Just let it go.’
The bird’s head is trapped. It’s not at all clear how it survived the snap of the jaws. But it has, and it glares at them both with one unblinking eye. Gloved-up in yellow medium-sized marigolds, he tentatively prises open the plastic jaws and ejects the bird which lays on its side gasping, its clawed feet clenching and unclenching. Lydia pushes it with the sharp toe of her shoe.
Friday:
The magpie is still lying in the garden. He avoids eye-contact as he puts out the recycling. It seems there are no second chances after all.
Saturday:
As he leaves, dragging his wheelie suitcase behind him, he notices the magpie has been chewed by something. There’s not much left.
Jupiter Jones lives in Wales and writes short and flash fictions. Her work has been published by Ad Hoc, Aesthetica, Amphibia and others.
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