Posts
Review: Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Pelayo
4 weeks ago
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Madge Makes Up Her Mind - 3
Madge stepped into room number 12 reluctantly, ready to run right back out should she find that something awful had happened again. She gazed around the room, taking in the perfectly made bed, the dust-free night table with a sparkling clean glass ashtray, the mirror above the dresser spotlessly reflecting a tray that held a water pitcher, glasses and a big, black telephone, everything just as it should be, cleaned and arranged exactly as Madge had instructed, but she saw nothing that could have been the source of the glass shards all over the floor. Just as she was thinking that the girl must surely have broken something by accident, panicked and run away out of shame or fear that she'd be beaten for it, Slappy walked in, looked around also, shrugged, and picked up the broom that lay on the floor near the dustpan, his shoes crunching on the scattered glass. Then it hit them both... a wave of odor that permeated the room – burnt, metallic, bloody, with a strangely female edge – a smell like sex gone wrong that caused Madge to gag a little, cover her nose and mouth with her hand, step back and nearly slip where the glass fragments had dissolved into fat globules of water spreading out on the floor and diluting the blood into meaningless pink puddles. The smell disappeared as she caught her balance, cursed the wet floor and hands on hips, complained, "If that girl thinks she can walk off and not finish her work, she's going to learn different when I get a hold of her." She stared into Slappy's eyes briefly, challenging him to make a smart remark, but he just shook his head and brushed past her muttering, "I'll go get the mop."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
There were bakelite phones?
ReplyDeletemadge is a hell of a woman!
ReplyDeleteCormac, thanks for pointing that out. Actually there were bakelite telephones and many other appliances made of bakelite, it was a very compatible material for electronic devices. I shouldn't have included it in a description, though, because the character wouldn't have thought of it that way. It's a period detail that doesn't work in that context. It's a constant battle to balance what I know from research – fun fact! Stick it in there somewhere! - with what's best for the story. Good eye, thanks again.
ReplyDeleteNo, I was just surprised because all the bakelite products that seem to still exist from that era a radios and the occasional TV. Who's to say that someone won't think of bakelite at an odd time?
ReplyDelete