Domestic Black Holes
A dark flash by Maggie Slater
Mauri had never seen a black hole, even a pinprick-sized one, and she immediately resented it. For one, the light-sucking darkness and emanating sense of dread was out of keeping with her home office’s new dusty pink and grey wallpaper she’d been so excited about. For two, it was ever-so-slightly off center which drove her crazy. For three, as she should have expected, her husband Ray had walked right into it without thinking, and now stood stuck. Ray, it should be noted, with his sweatpants and faded Patriots t-shirt, was also not in keeping with the room’s aesthetic.
“Seriously, I can’t move.” He grimaced as he tried to shift his weight again, and let out a little cry of pain. “Shit, it hurts. It’s like I’m nailed in place!”
Mauri tried not to roll her eyes. Ray was notorious for thinking his pain was worse than everybody else’s. She wished she could have seen him push a nine pound baby through his hips.
“Just go fast, a quick yank. Maybe it’ll hurt a bit, but you can’t stay here.”
In my space, she didn’t say. This was the only room in the house that was hers, all hers, not shared with Ray or the kids or the toys or his disorganized hunting gear, hers. And now Ray—because of course he had—had wedged his way in.
Ray was hyperventilating, screwing up what little courage he had. But just when she thought he might give it a proper go, he sagged and gasped, “I can’t, Maur. I can’t.”
The sense of dread she’d thought had come from the tiny black hole seemed to have shifted to encompass all of Ray. Just looking at him made her sick to her stomach with rage. He wasn’t even trying.
“Yes, you can,” she said, grabbing for his arm.
Ray recoiled, screaming louder than anyone she’d ever heard outside of a horror film. “Stop! Maur! No! It hurts! Oh my god…”
“I didn’t even pull!”
Tears streamed down Ray’s face. One eye had busted a blood vessel, making him look vaguely possessed. “Just…gimme a sec…” he huffed.
Mauri sucked in a breath to settle her nerves. She’d asked for one afternoon for Ray to take the kids out to a park, or a MacDonald’s play place, anything, so she could have a couple hours to herself, and a part of her was sure, absolutely sure, he’d gotten himself stuck in her little office on purpose to get out of it.
The kids’ footsteps thunder upstairs, and something thumped hard enough to shake the walls. A moment later, the wail of the youngest stabbed into her chest, gravitationally yanking her towards the door.
But she hesitated. If she went now, there would be no break. She’d get sucked into fetching snacks and kissing booboos and finding socks, none of which she minded ninety-five percent of the time, but she’d been looking forward to this break all week, had had to twist Ray’s arm to get one, just one out of hundreds, afternoon off-!
The wail grew louder.
“Are you going to go handle that?” Ray asked, sweat slicking his brow. The pinprick black hole sat right at his left shoulder. It wasn’t that far from getting dislodged. “I mean, I can’t, so…”
Mauri glared at him, the blood rushing to her ears. Why had he come into her space to ask her about how to get the kids ready? He was their father! He should know!
Ray was the black hole. He sucked up all her energy, all her time, all her autonomy, her identity, her life force. Sucked it all up into the pit of his selfishness. If it wasn’t about him, it didn’t exist, and heaven forbidanything cause him any discomfort!
“Mom!” Jake’s voice rang through the ceiling. “Petey hurt himself!”
Ray stared at her, innocent, like she should have foreseen this happening.
“What are you doing?” he cried as she grabbed his arm again. “Maur! Stop!”
But this time, she didn’t, even when he shrieked, even when the bones cracked and red spattered across that pretty new wallpaper.
Hi there! If you don’t know me, I’m Maggie Slater. I write speculative fiction of a variety of stripes ranging from outright horror, sci-fi, and fantasy to strange, humorous literary stuff. My work has appeared in genre mags like Apex Magazine, Metaphorosis, and even got translated into Mandarin for Science Fiction World, as well as in literary magazines like Redivider and The Core Review.
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