I'm Leaving

This is my contribution to 3WW and FridayFlash.

Enjoy.

I'm Leaving

The lights in the house dimmed. Maggie looked out the kitchen window. Beyond the tall stalks of corn and vines of tomatoes of her garden, the windows of their two car garage flickered blue and orange. Viktor was at it again.

She loved Viktor from the first time they met in the bookstore. He was in the ‘Engineering’ section and she was heading to ‘Romance’. He had a military look to him then; tall, dark eyes, tight black hair with a goatee with a chiseled physique but over the years, he gained weight, his hair receded and whitened. He joked about how he used to look and how she never changed.

She marched out the side door. This was it. The final straw. After nineteen years of marriage as Mrs. Viktor Ramat, Maggie was going to leave him. Once and for all. She was tired of being ignored and treated like a possession instead of a real person. I have feelings, she thought.

She banged on the garage side door. “Viktor, open up!” She heard electrical crackling inside. “Viktor!”

The lightshow inside stopped and the humming lowered. The door clicked and cracked opened.

“What?”

“Let me in, Viktor.”

“Not now. Come back in a little while. An hour or so."

“We need to talk.”

“N-O-T now.”

Maggie leaned on the doorframe, she became tired all of the sudden. Emotional and physically.

“I’m leaving you.”

The door opened wider. Viktor wore a lab coat, thick black gloves and dark goggles.

“This is… unexpected.”

Maggie stepped inside and wondered if Viktor was going to try to talk her out of it. Viktor just closed the door.

Multi-colored wires sprawled overhead covering the ceiling and then coming together in the center to connect to a cylinder of tubes, monitors, switches and wires. The cylinder itself hummed lowly. Several computer terminals lined the walls and on the floor, cables connected them to the cylinder.

Maggie’s vision tunneled and the room seemed to sway. Viktor grabbed her and gently sat her down on a metal chair.

“What, what is all this, Viktor?”

“I’m leaving for my own time,” he said coldly. “I just need a little more power to remedy a variable.”

This wasn’t fair! She was supposed to leave him! What did he mean by own time? She needed leverage.

“I’m pregnant.”

“No you’re not.” Viktor checked one of the monitors on the cylinder. “Power needs to build faster,” he said to himself. “It’s not drawing fast enough.”

“I am too. That’s what I wanted to tell you. So you can’t leave me.”

“You’re not.”

Maggie tried to stand but felt the room tilt under her feet, she fell back into the chair.

“Am… too.” She wanted to sleep.

Viktor grabbed the arms of the chair. He looked her over. “I still need you.” He leaned into her and kissed her lips.

“Maggie.”

“Yyess..”

“De-activate 7737.”

Maggie slummed forward. Viktor pushed her back up. He reached behind her left ear and pressed down four times. Maggie’s forehead opened revealing a glowing green square. Viktor pressed on the square. It clicked and then popped out.

Viktor held it up between his thumb and fore-finger.

“This will do just fine.”

He slid the square into a slot on the cylinder. The humming grew louder. He grabbed onto a bar on the side of the cylinder with one hand and grabbed the main switch with the other.

He looked at her one last time and pulled the switch.