Cheese and Wine In Corona Times -It

I sit with him; in the night we hear eerie boardwalk creaks near the white sand beach. I ask if he recalls our neighbors when they told me of the psycho cat’s demise. “What psycho cat?” he asks. I am in shock he seems to have no memory of when our neighbor’s tabby used to howl all night and how that cat in their back yard showed up - a carcass with a rope around its neck. Meanwhile, we’re eating cheese. Before he has the chance to ask what brand of cheese it is, the label I hide on the wine bottle. I'd realized too late he does not like the certain brand of cheese I’d packed for this - our midnight picnic, so while he moans on about the virus and then tells me his sabbatical dreams after quarantine, I have nervously torn the label off the cheese. I mean, why would he ever think to be looking for it on the bottle? He’s grown drunk on the wine, and suddenly he’s getting crazy and examining the cheese package. He yells, “Where’s the label? Did you just feed crap cheddar cheese to me?” He looks all around, on the ground . . . and then he spies the empty bottle. Oh, my gosh! He sees the cheese label I put on it. “Blast it, woman; you know I hate that brand!” Cabin fever we have been enduring throughout this dreadful year 2020 - I feel his big strong hands around my throat. His eyes bulge as he tries to strangle me. Before I lose consciousness, I’m thinking . . . so now I know who killed our neighbor's cat! Sept. 20, 2020 For Kim Rodrigues' Collaborate with Me Poetry Contest