Pneumonochrome

I’ve pasted my most recent creative writing exercise below. We were to focus on conflict and character development without using dialogue.

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The force with which he slammed down his books rattled her grandmother’s china, on display in the old oak curio with large, thick sheets of glass that stood against the same wall as his desk. The old wheels on the chair were stiff, a fact that hid behind the rage in his brain and laughed accusingly as he jerked on the chair and overturned it when it didn’t move as quickly as he wanted it to. Clenching his teeth so hard that they pierced into his jaw with their roots.

He was trying to wrap himself up so thoroughly in his studies that he could forget she existed altogether, but as interesting as cancer cell proliferation was, it was a divot on a thimble, into which he was trying to pour a sea full of rage. As that rage overwhelmed the receptacle, it cascaded instantly across the room, and he found himself studying the silence that flowed from her.

He knew without looking that she was carefully stacking the dishes that had waited all afternoon to be washed and returned to their cabinet, stacking them so carefully while she formulated, recited, and revised what she would say to him later when she would expect him to admit he was wrong, that they made no noise that could be heard any farther away than her own ears.

She’d start with the plates, glaring at them, challenging them to make a noise while she wiped them off with the rag that had once snuck in to the washer with whites, emerging spotted with green and white hair like a Holstein who had been a teenager in the 80s. Once cleared, they’d rest on the counter in a neat stack while she arranged the glasses next to them, and the silverware in a neat pile in front. Then she would take any dishes used for serving or backing and place them in the large sink, pouring detergent over them, and then, yes, there it was, the sound of water.

It woke him up from his study of her, and he furiously turned back to his books, and began to read about the genetic mutations that can cause cells to lose regulation of their growth cycles and in seconds he was distracted again by the sound of her slipping her fingers under the stream of the water, testing the temperature, and he turned, scrutinizing everything he knew she would do.

She stood there, stiffly, with her back to him, straight as the cross she wore around her neck, hands on her hips, trying to shove the water out of the tap faster by the force of will she glared at it. For years that glare would wilt him immediately, and he’d find himself admitting wrongs that weren’t, and pleading forgiveness. Not tonight.

The sink filled slowly, and she soon lost patience waiting for it, so she turned to the table, still making a science of not looking at him. If she was going to be that way, he could certainly play the game, too. Most cancer is caused by deleterious mutations in DNA that cause shift in the reading frame of the DNA, resulting in a deformed protein. If the mutation happened only to one of the two strands of DNA, it was usually harmless, because it would be corrected by the other strand, which just waited silently for the comparison that would lead to correction.

He turned, now, to find her sitting there, calmly watching the sink. Her folded arms showed she was waiting for what she felt was inevitable. His anger flared at that, a very old match dieing as quickly as it sprang to life. She sat there, and her face told him that she knew he was not whole, and that he’d find it soon enough, and return to be corrected.