{"id":936,"date":"2018-02-05T18:01:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T18:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/?p=936"},"modified":"2022-10-26T12:02:16","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T12:02:16","slug":"lake-of-tears-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/lake-of-tears-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Lake of Tears part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">by Joe Stanley<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: book\\ antiqua, palatino, serif; font-size: 24pt;\">3<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The balance of power had shifted. She spat her stinging words without effect, other than to see me smile. Fury trembled <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">her frame and twisted her face into that of an old hag. <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">I hadn&#8217;t told her anything, but somehow she knew it all. That she even knew Emily&#8217;s name told me, as I had already dimly <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">suspected, that she was having me watched.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">She admitted so frankly to my accusation and began to promise me Hell on Earth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;But, Dear,&#8221; I observed, &#8220;The open marriage was your idea.&#8221;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">She insulted me, she threatened not only myself but Emily as well. Now it was my turn to seethe, but after so long a <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">treatment of cold cruelty, I simply returned the favor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">I quietly poured myself a drink while she gawked in disbelief.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;Accidents do happen, my darling, but you&#8217;d better hope none happen to me or Emily.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">She began to roar, but I silenced her at once.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;You shut your hateful face right now! You shut the hell up and you listen and listen well. Those classes I take, the ones <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">you&#8217;re always ridiculing me for, I have to sit through a lot of lectures&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;What&#8217;s that got to do with anything?&#8221; she demanded, trying to shudder me with her evil laugh.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;Shut your bitch-hole and you&#8217;ll find out.&#8221; I replied, very amused to see her eyes so wide they nearly popped from her <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">head, &#8220;Like I was saying, I have to sit through a lot of lectures and I&#8217;ve never been great at taking notes&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;You&#8217;ve lost your mind&#8230;&#8221; she bellowed, her voice becoming a growl, &#8221; and you&#8217;re going to lose a whole lot more&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;But the bookstore has lots of little things to help a student out. As for the lectures,&#8221; I said, reaching into my pocket, <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;This little recorder has been a life-saver. See here, it&#8217;s recording right now. Let&#8217;s see what&#8217;s on it.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">She listened with horror to her own voice promising an accident.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;You can&#8217;t record me without my permission!&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;I&#8217;m in my own home, I can do whatever I want. And if anything happens to us, the cops aren&#8217;t going to give a damn about <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">the technicalities, they&#8217;ll be looking at you. In the future, if you don&#8217;t wish to be recorded, I guess it would be better if you <\/span><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">simply didn&#8217;t speak to me.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif;\">to be continued<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Joe Stanley 3 The balance of power had shifted. She spat her stinging words without effect, other than to see me smile. Fury trembled her frame and twisted her face into that of an old hag. I hadn&#8217;t told her anything, but somehow she knew it all. That she even knew Emily&#8217;s name told [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,113],"tags":[4,78],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-fiction","category-joe-stanley","tag-flash-fiction","tag-joe-stanely"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2839,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/2839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanharker.co.uk\/theghostlyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}