Friday, May 9, 2008

The Horns



Even at night, in the dark, with just a little wimpy quarter moon in the sky, they taunted me. I could see the moon's reflection in the large Texas Longhorns mounted on the back of the Cohen's house; it was like a circus spotlight. Every time I saw them, I got angrier. Even now that I was finally getting ready to take action, just seeing them made me furious.

Those Cohens had pushed me too far when they ignored my last letter. I am not an unreasonable man. I gave them one last chance. I warned them that I would be forced to take action if they didn't remove that flaming insult, but they didn't even bother to answer. They chose to continue to insult the Roma family name with their insinuations that my wife was unfaithful. When they put them up, I explained to them that those horns mean cuckold in Sicily, but they thought I was being funny. They even laughed when I suggested they take them down. Bet they won't be laughing later tonight. Day after day after day I have been mocked by those horns right outside my dining room window, staring me in the face, hinting that my wife lies with another man.

They tried to tell me that the horns were a souvenir from their honeymoon in Arizona, but they couldn't fool me. I saw how they laughed at me when they thought I couldn't see them. I heard them joke about my anger when they were barbecuing with friends. I won't be the butt of jokes. Especially not when I've been so nice to those people. Soon they'll be sorry that they tried to make a fool of me. No one makes a fool of Tony Roma.

The can of gasoline banged against my knee. The pain snapped me out of my dreams of revenge. It was time to get to work.

This piece of fiction was inspired by the Friday Fiction prompt: Using first person narration, logically describe something that is crazy. Click through to see what others did with the prompt!

2 comments:

Jodi Cleghorn said...

Congrats on the new blog! This would be enough to make the sanest man just a little crazy .. let alone use it to mock Sicillian

(I met one many years ago who was the best mate of a boyfriend at the time ... he was still planning revenge against the guys at bording school who had tormented him!)

It's short and to the point ... you get to use your own imagination of the flames engulfing the house and the horns smouldering among the ruins at the end. Will there be more of Tony Roma I wonder?

b+ (Retire In Style Blog) said...

I liked that you decided to use a mans voice. That is so difficult for me! Well done.

Thank you for the comment on my blog.

b