Gross accidents and public humiliations 2

Helen knew that Simon had been seeing someone else. A mobile phone that switched to messages the moment he left the house. The state of his underpants compared to the state of their bed sheets. A sudden spate of sit-ups. All told a story she didn’t wish to hear.

He was always too busy during the week and too tired at weekends to talk about the difficulties she felt their relationship had drifted into. Every weekend she planned to confront him but somehow Monday came around and off he went to the outside world and whoever it was who was making him happy.

She was making a hotpot one Sunday morning while Simon was in the pub with his Golfing Friends. She’d peeled the potatoes, prepared the lamb, the barley and set herself to dice the carrots. She picked the sharpest Sabatier for the job and at once its steely glint kindled a steely anger inside her.

She was young and attractive enough. Men looked at her in the street. Who the hell did the fat bastard think he was? A dick like a carrot, too. She slashed at the one in her hand, threw it in the pot and grabbed another. How dare he take her for granted in this way?

She slashed at the carrot with equal ferocity, threw it in the pot and grabbed yet another. Her blood seethed .She could bone him, fillet him, chop him to mush without compunction.

The door opened suddenly upon her homicidal fantasies and Simon barged into the kitchen singing. Caught off guard by his sudden appearance Helen chopped through two fingers of her left hand. She stared down at them lying amongst the carrots and then up at Simon. He darted for the telephone as she started to scream.