The Changeling

The changeling

She heaved a sigh as she sank into the deep armchair. Her feet were giving her hell again. She was getting too heavy.

It was uncomfortably hot in the living room. As usual, he had insisted on drawing the curtains so that he could follow the match on the telly. For the umpteenth time she wondered why they only showed sports on a weekend. There were people who preferred watching something else, once in a while. She would have liked to read or knit but turning on the reading lamp would only elicit a protest from him. Since the armchair was the only comfortable piece in the house, apart from the sofa he was occupying, she was condemned to sit in the flickering blue light, trying to blend out the roaring of the spectators and the exited shouts of the commentator.

In her feet an army of ants was exercising with pins. She should take a foot bath. It would do her a world of good. If only she wouldn't have to get out of the armchair again. She closed her eyes to shut out the stroboscopic light that gave her a headache and snuggled a little deeper into the armchair.

“Goaaaal!” Her husband was shouting in harmony with thousands of other viewers. The echo reverberated through the street and drifted in through the gap in the curtain. She frowned. That would be water on Mrs. Jenkins' mill. Her living room adjoined theirs and the walls were very thin. Mrs. Jenkins always had some snide remarks after a match. She detested sports so Mr. Jenkins preferred to putter around in the garden.

She opened her eyes again. Her husband was lounging in the sofa, a can of beer in one hand, the bottom of his singlet riding up over his extended belly. The air in the room was sticky and humid and patches of sweat stained the fabric under his armpits and on his chest. In the flickering light the skin had an unhealthy, almost decayed looking cast, hanging in flabby folds over the waistband of his old moleskin. She knew that under the fabric of his pants his legs were thin as matchsticks, the muscles gone soft from lack of exercise, the knees knobbly and wrinkled.

He looks like some kind of gnome, a monster, a food devouring machine, a visual vacuum cleaner, sucking up the images of the telly. What has become of the trim young man, full of energy and a sense of adventure?

Was this the man she had once felt was Prince Charming? Who was this disgusting old man? For almost forty years she had washed and cleaned, cared for him and the children, run up and down the stairs of their small house, lugged the food up the steep road from the supermarket because he had needed the car to go to work. Somewhere along the line her Prince Charming had become a frog and no kissing would turn him back again. Like a changeling from a fairy tale he had been turned into something loathsome.

He burped and scratched his belly. “My can is empty. I need another one.” His eyes didn't leave the screen as he held out the empty can to her.

She looked at him from narrow eyes. For many years this had been her signal to get up and bring him another one. Today she was too tired.

“What's the matter? Didn't you hear? Get me another beer!” Her silence finally caused him to tear his eyes for a split second from the scree. Enough to make sure she was there and alive. He held out the can and shook it impatiently.

“Get it yourself,” she said calmly.

His eyes snapped back from the screen, unbelieving. She smiled faintly, and closed her eyes. As she dozed off she heard the clatter of the empty beer can, dropping from his hand.

Written about 1998, revised 2013