Mighty Micks
an excerpt

The day started as normal, an hour before the alarm was even thinking of being ready. He was never even sure why he kept the alarm, he always joked with his wife that it was her warning bell. “If it goes off, I am already gone so just get up and get the kettle on for the lads when they come to cart me out” he said. He slid out of bed as effortlessly and silently as an elephant’s leg from deep wet mud. He walked slowly down the noisy stairs; he thought they were noisy nut it was only when he used them that any creaking was heard at all. The tea was a few minutes away from being brewed, as always when he entered the kitchen and turned on the old radio. He went out and got the paper, poured himself some Barry’s tea and sat down to read the editorials while listening to the talk radio host ranting on once more about something that only the host really cared about and only enough to get the ratings up.
He spent the usual 35 minutes reading and listening before heading up the creaking stairs once more, “Is it too much to ask that in a family like mine that we have one who can fix these damned cracks and creaks on these stairs?” He thought as he approached the top step. He entered the guest bathroom, shat, showered and shaved as always and then went back to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and lunch. He ate slowly and carefully before packing his bag, opening the freezer and heading back upstairs one last time. The bedroom door was ajar, she was sleeping soundly and he knew her alarm clock would go off in 12 minutes; he entered her bathroom, the master suite toilet with more room than some apartments but for only her use. He loved her so much that he was quite happy to let her have the room all to herself and it made life easier also. He adjusted the toilet seat and made certain the lid was raised but the seat was down, as should be when a lady lives in a home. The Missus had her own routine also. She would hit the snooze button, get out and hit the toilet and then hit the sheets again for another half hour of snooze bingo before getting up and starting her day, he was always gone before she awoke but he spent a moment every morning simply looking at her from the doorway and thinking of how he could make this day better for her. She had a busy day ahead preparing for the christening, another one; her family bred like rabbits but with only half the brains. He tried to do everything he could to help her through it all, he set her cup with milk ready to pour beside the kettle, he had her slippers and gown ready by the bed and the towels were just on the heater so she would not have to think about that. He went through the checklist one more time to make sure everything was as perfect as possible, even down to the toilet seat.
The clock was about to strike 5AM but he was already headed out the door before it had a chance to let him know. His own internal alarm clock had not been wrong in over 40 years and he was damned if something that someone pieced together in a little shack would ever know the time better than he did. He opened the car door and slid inside, savoring the chill in the morning air, he started the engine and backed out of the drive, and stopped. He sat and waited, knowing her alarm would go off in a few seconds, he counted down from 25 and was surprised when he heard the familiar ringing 2 seconds early; he made a note to change the batteries so it would keep better time in future and put the car in gear before slowly coasting away. The scream came 45 seconds later from the upstairs window. Her face appeared for a moment and was gone again. He pressed hard on the accelerator and got out of the street as fast as legally allowed and got as far away as possible before having to pull over and wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes. He went in the opposite direction from the job site simply because he was not sure if she would follow him and try to shoot him now or wait until he got home before ending his miserable life but he knew every instant he remained alive would be one of pain and suffering from the laughing he was doing right now. He tried to set a camera up to catch her expression but he could not find a suitable location that she would not have tore apart once she had discovered it. He worried about others finding the camera and hacking into it and seeing her in such a pose. He would have given almost anything to see her face as she walked into the bathroom with eyes as filled with sleep as a hotdog was with pig dick, as she approached the toilet, sat down and leapt through the ceiling when she contacted the seat just removed from the freezer below. He knew it was cruel but then again, she had a big day ahead and needed to be fully alert for it, he was after all just dong his husbandly duty to help her as much as he could. He really was a nice guy.
He had a phone at the house, one at the office and did not want or need one in between. He knew there would be a message when he got to work but that was still 25 minutes away and he had that amount of time to simply enjoy the commute and fight his way through NY traffic once more