Another fart made it’s way into the world. By teatime each day, they queued like clouds of vapour on a conveyer belt. In her classroom fifty years ago the girls around her had called them ‘silent but violent’ but no one ever verbally blamed Andzelika. She had perfected their release without leaning to either side, which was always the giveaway, throwing in a guiltless face and volunteering to make the tea as her friends nostrils wriggled in disapproval.

They weren’t really her friends; in fact she had no friends left at all. In her 60th year she had managed to alienate everyone her and Marty knew. One moment she named (insert male name here) and (insert female name here) as their best of friends, the next, they were “never seeing those f’ing tossers again”.
“They’ve lost a great friend in me!” she announced.

A great organiser of parties, she pressurised the weak willed who knew that non-attendance would be shared with the online social community; the peer pressure was easier to withstand with a token appearance. People usually left after they had caught her eye, leaving her to orchestrate the topics of conversation drawing those to her deep voice and ensuring that all subjects included anything she could relate to.

She loved animals and held them in more esteem than any living person. Marty wasn’t even second in the household pecking order: he calculated about fifth. Each night they slept with Walter, their basset hound and Clarence, Ted and Beccabitchbag, the Persian pussycats. Andzelika was generously ungenerous; she always received more than she gave but she had a way of making people believe she was solely responsible for any acts of charity.

Marty was a dormant volcano though, boiling and smouldering over the 26 years since his last eruption. He had learned not to argue and to suppress his desire to wring her neck. In his youth he had unleashed his formidable temper in a bar fight. Someone had pogoed into him at a Christmas Eve party during Bad Manners’ version of the ‘Can Can’, and his beer had spilt all over his brand new white ‘Choose Life’ Wham T-shirt. As he rose to his feet, he scraped his right sole on the floor and assumed the posture of a bull. He then threw himself into a tired line up still just about holding onto each other and throwing their legs wildly into the air at the conclusion of the track. Tables broke in half, some arms did too and Marty left them all with lasting memories of the song that featured the ironically named Buster Bloodvessel.

After that evening he resolved to swallow all future provocations, besides, the stain came out the following day.

He found solace in ‘blue’ jobs, and even if there weren’t any he created them, venting all his ire on projects that involved demolition, imagining her vicious tongue squashed at the base of a pile of rubble. He often woke before dawn, turning over to see her at peace. But her eyelashes flickered like a silent movie and her lips repeated some of the words that morphed into the daily demands she placed on him: even in a state of slumber she dominated his life. His vow had become a noose and she hung him by the yardarm and opened the trapdoor every day. By trading in his pride for what he thought was an easier life he had just become the straight man in an unfunny comedy act.

It was only when he overheard a telephone conversation that his daughter Charlotte had made that he realised his supplication had taken on obscene levels of acquiescence. The word that hurt the most was ‘gutless’ as she described her eavesdropper. He wasn’t angry with her for saying such things as he’d detected a resigned sadness in her tone. She said that she still ‘loved him’ but wished he’d found someone else instead of the woman the rest of the family were always trying to avoid.

As the grey hair had crept onto his head and his body groaned with years of punishment, he realised his dreams had divorced him; the harsh words from Charlotte, the age in his face and more demands from his insidious Queen became the perfect storm and Marty was helpless in its swell.

His restraint bowled around his head like an escaped lion hungry for a pen of gazelle.

He began with the wireless network removing one of the cables from inside the external junction box. Each time she tried to connect to any of her social sites they failed with ‘website unobtainable’ errors. She telephoned their broadband provider only to be placed on hold for 10 minutes: “you are number 8 in the queue.” Once they connected her she exploded like a jet propelled theme park ride, ramming rude words down the phone to an implacable girl from the call centre who told her an engineer would be with them within 5 days.

Marty phoned and cancelled them on day 4!

She resorted to the free Wi-Fi in the coffee shops, explaining to her brethren that Ocean Broadband were the worst company in the world. To Marty, this summed her up perfectly; there was never any substance to her claims, just wild, incorrect statements that coated every employee with an irremovable stain.

He thought about poison but considered the trail he could leave behind: the men that are driven to such acts do not know how to cover their steps.

After being ordered to make her a drink at the next party, Marty duly obliged adding a significant amount of laxative to the concoction. Within minutes, she had disappeared to their private bathroom (well, she would never use the same one as the filthy guests) and was not seen until midnight as Marty made mock apologies to those that were left saying he didn’t know where she had gone.
She organised another get together a couple of weeks later not only to repair her reputation but also to have her stage. Marty changed tack by logging into one of her social media accounts and advised the guests that the party was cancelled simultaneously turning off her notifications. Around ten that had not read the notice still arrived and were treated to Andzelika repeatedly broadcasting her disgust that someone could be so evil to do such a thing ‘to her’. She reported the hacking to the Police who advised her to choose a less obvious password. She told Marty that she had added 123 to the eight-letter word and that it would now be very hard to crack.

Even though he hadn’t had access to the finances for some years (come to think of it, ANY years) he booked a surprise trip to Australia, utilizing the odd job funds he had stashed and using yet another of her ‘please forgive me’ parties to break the news. She looked horrified, disgusted and angry all at once: but only to Marty. To everyone else she exuded a grateful woman, “her heart”, she said, “was jumping.” More like your anger, he thought.

He updated his Internet profile every day with ‘10 more sleeps, 9 more’ etc. To keep up appearances she played along with the jealous but sincere reactions from her followers, posting ‘what’s he like?’ and ‘I’ll never forget my husbands act.’ Marty kept her on her toes for weeks. They didn’t speak anyway so he found this new way to communicate quite refreshing. Marty’s days of barking to her broken hearing aid were over, he finally had her attention.

He softened. The storm had passed. Like anything that combusts, all the elements are needed to keep the flame alive and the dreaded dowser sympathy crept into his head as they landed in Cairns. Even though her mouth was full of canker and her heart had been bathed in acid, she was still the person who wound his wheel every day. He wasn’t the most self-motivated man in the world and she gave him focus and drive.

He held her hand as they strolled for the first time along Kewarra Beach, where she slipped off her flip-flops and squelched her way over to the waters edge kicking the froth playfully at him. He hadn’t seen that smile in years as she closed her eyes and allowed the sun that had tidied the clouds away to bathe her in it’s warm balm.

She didn’t see the eyes that surfaced just above the retreating wave behind where she stood. They were green and focused on the shape disturbing the water.

Marty’s smile turned to a shout as the saltwater crocodile clamped his jaws around her leg on her next backswing. She gave him a ‘help me’ look and Marty stood stone still. A wave washed over her head as the 6 metre long reptile dragged her away into the deep.

He looked around, the beach was empty and so now was his soul.