short story: four weeks

He was Jak without a C and she was Michele with one L. He was a writer and she was a nurse. That was how they introduced themselves when they first met at a party and they immediately hit it off. After weeks of horror movies and rough sex in his basement bedroom, Jak proposed to Michele by dressing up as a surgeon and pulling out a cheap ring from a patient's open chest. She said yes. They moved into an apartment downtown that was close to the hospital and were very happily married until they realized how different they were. Hence, they fought a lot.

While Michele worked her butt off in the hospital, Jak stayed at home most of the time, collecting rejection slips from publishers. He tried to work at a fast food joint but kept forgetting orders and burning patties so he was fired on day one. He was offered a job at an advertising company but he just didn't want to be an office tool. Michele would come home and they'd fight about everything but they would always patch things up again because Jak would always find a creative way to make it up to her.

One morning, Jak decided to end his life.

They had a big shouting match the previous night and he broke a vase. At breakfast, he hugged Michele and told her: "I love you, love. I am so sorry. Everything will be okay now." She kissed him and left for work without saying a word.

Jak cleaned the apartment. He washed the dishes, picked up his clothes, swept the floor and threw out the trash. He then showered, shaved and put on the tuxedo he wore on their wedding. He even combed his hair. After checking himself in front of the bedroom mirror, Jak pulled out a toolbox from under the bed and took the gun inside it.

He returned to the mirror and sat on the chair he had placed in front of it. In the back of his mind, he hoped that his death would get his stories the attention they deserve. But more importantly, Michele was better off without him. She'd probably hook up with that doctor who kept hitting on her and have a way happier life than he could ever give her.

He smiled at himself and thought: "Now, I'll never get the chance to see her striptease out of her nurse uniform. Oh, well."

He grabbed the gun, placed the barrel in his mouth and closed his eyes.

The doorbell rang.

Jak put the gun away and answered the door. It was Scotty, their obnoxious neighbor.

"Hey, Jak," he said. "Do you have a shovel I can borrow? You see, I'm..."

"No," Jak said and began to close the door.

But Scotty stopped it. "Don't you wanna know why I need a shovel? You see, I have to bury..."

"No," Jak said and pushed the door shut.

"Hey, why are you wearing a tux anyway? You a magician or something? Can you teach me some tricks?"

Jak walked towards the bedroom but suddenly had an idea for a story. As a force of habit, he tore a Post-It from the pad and wrote it down. He was about to stick it on the wall behind his PC but then realized the business at hand and so he just crumpled it up and threw it into bin. In the bedroom, he turned on the stereo and played The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop because he thought that was a good song to die to. When he was back on the chair, the gun wasn't on the desk. He had forgotten where he put it. He searched the whole desk and pulled out the drawers but it wasn't there. He checked the bed, the closet, the bathroom and got zilch. He looked for it everywhere and basically messed up the whole house again in the process but he just couldn't find the gun. He gave up and calmed himself down. Whenever he forgot something, the best way to remember it was to stop thinking about it. So, he turned on the TV and sat on the couch.

He felt the gun press on his lower back. He stood up and learned that the gun had been holstered behind him all along.

He turned the TV off, went back to the bedroom, played Blitzkrieg Bop again and put the gun in his mouth.

"Jak!" came Michele's voice followed by the door closing. Jak spun around and slowly placed the gun inside a drawer.

Michele entered the bedroom with her left hand on her tummy and a small white object in between her right thumb and index finger. There was a hole on it that showed a red plus sign.

"We're gonna have a baby!"

Jak simply gulped.