Jane started to sneeze again. One, two, three, ten. Whenever she sneezes she does it ten times in a row. Can you believe that? Her poor nose. It’s ridiculous. I couldn’t bear to watch her sneeze ten times in a row—god knows I’ve seen her do it before—so I left and rode the elevator down to the lobby then walked to the pub.

            I sat down on a stool at the bar and ordered a whiskey. “Make it neat,” I told the bartender.

            I finished my drink. Ordered two more. Went home.

            She was still sneezing by the time I got back to our apartment, her nose dripping and eyes watering. I wanted to put her out of her misery or comfort her in some way. But, I didn’t. I walked back to the pub and ordered three more whiskeys, instead.

            I was drunk by the time I decided to head home to my snot-rocket. Poor Jane, with her nose and all. I liked her a lot, but every time she sneezed a part of my soul died. And not a quick, painless death, but an agonizing and slow one. She only got like this during the spring, though; the pollen floating around seemed to violently irritate her sinuses.

            “How’re you doing?” I asked her.

            She gave me this awful look like she was upset at me for not being a more caring partner. But who am I kidding? I was a jerk.

            “Jerk,” she said to me.

            I shrugged my shoulders, walked to my lounge chair and flicked my shoes onto the floor. If I sit in my chair long enough, not saying a word, Jane will usually leave me alone and head off to bed. So I sat there, not saying anything, until she finally left. I could hear her obnoxious sneezes echo throughout the apartment as she walked into the bedroom. God bless her soul, she was one tough cookie.

            I met her at a diner a few years back, smack in the middle of winter, before I knew about her nasal complex. It wasn’t until we tied the knot that I found out she sneezed the way a horse neighs. We were happily married for nine months out of every year, unhappily every spring. I even use to buy her tissues in bulk from a wholesale vendor for the first few years of our marriage. Now I spend the majority of every spring drunk at the pub.

            Jane was unemployed and so was I—I was a writer. I’d catch a break every now and then and we’d go to fancy dinners and buy expensive wine when business was good. Between gigs we would only eat rice and beans. We couldn’t afford anything else. Except for wine, of course. Every night we drank enough wine to kill a horse.

            One day I was sitting in my chair, reading the newspaper, enjoying the warmth from the fireplace, when Jane walked in to the living room, sneezing. I’d had enough.

            “JESUS H. CHRIST,” I screamed. “Why don’t you take some Benadryl or something?”

            “Because!”

            “Because what?”

            She sneezed again and then sneezed nine more times.

            “Because it’s bad for you that’s why!” she yelled at me. “Plus, the FDA banned it two years ago.”

            “They did? What the heck?”

            Jane started to explain why the drug was banned, then started sneezing again. So I left. I walked to the pub. It was 1o o’clock, sun still rising.

            Jane had always wanted kids. I didn’t. They’d be a bunch of sneezing monsters, running around blowing snot on everything, if you ask me. Who wants any’a those.

            I walked in the pub and sat down on my usual stool.

            “Rough morning?” asked the bartender.

            “Yeah. My wife—she’s a sneezer.”

            “No kidding. Those sneezers, sneezing all over the place. I hate ‘em.”

            “You and me both, pal.”

            He poured me a whiskey. “It’s on the house,” he said.

            I consumed my beverage and ordered two more, as per usual.

            “Hey,” I said to the bartender, “what’s your name?”

            “Louie.”

            “Well, Louie, I love my wife and all—she’s real great—but what the heck do I do about her sneezing? It’s driving me mad.”

            “I’ll tell ya, man. These sneezers, they’re always making a mess and all. Always irritated that they can’t stop blowing snot out their noses. If I were you, I’d just stay out as much as possible until the pollen settles down.”

            And so, I did. Every morning I would leave the apartment around 10 a.m. and walk to the pub, have a few drinks and shoot the crap with Louie. Each night I’d go home, sit in my chair and wait for Jane to call me a “jerk” before going to sleep. Eventually, Jane had enough.

            I was sitting on my stool at the bar, talking to Louie about robots.

            “Robots?” he asked.

            “Robots.”

            “What about them?”

            “They’re going to be the end of humanity,” I told him. “They’re gonna rise up and kill all of us, just like SkyNet from that Terminator movie.”

            “No kidding.”

            “Yup.”

            Louie poured me another drink. I slammed it back and continued conversing with him.

            “So anyway, think about it. If you were created by humans what would you do if—”

            I stopped speaking, mid-sentence, when I heard a sneeze followed by a thud.

            There was the aforementioned thud and then there was screaming. I got up and ran outside to see what had happened. A motionless body lay face-up on the sidewalk. It was Jane. Her face was flattened like a pancake, but I could tell it was her. There was mucus flowing from her nostrils.

            I walked back inside.

            “What happened?” Louie asked.

            “Someone jumped.”

            “Christ. Could you tell who it was?”

            “My wife,” I said.

            I grabbed my whiskey and tossed it down my gullet and left the pub.

            When I got back to my apartment I saw that the window was broken, completely shattered. The love of my life was dead, all because I avoided her for a few weeks. If she had only bought some damn Benadryl we could’ve avoided this entire train-wreck. At least there was no more sneezing.

            I poured myself a tall glass of rum and turned my chair so it faced the broken window. I sat down, glass in hand, and shouted:

            “GOD BLESS YOU!”

 

THE END