Charlie (5 Word Challenge: pickle, fireplace, audacious, street, surprise)

6:04 AM, Thursday, February 1, 2007

Charlie woke with a start, the crashing of a sheet of snow and ice falling from the roof of her cabin to the ground below too loud for any woman -- or dog -- to sleep through.  Her malamute, Benny, whined at the intrusion into his dog dreams, and sat up to look at his mistress expectantly.

"It was just snow falling off the roof, Benny.  It must've warmed up some overnight."

Charlie clambered out from under the heavy quilts and blankets that insulated her bed and felt the chill as she flipped on the bedside lantern and searched for her slippers.  Once they were found and quickly slipped onto her feet, she stood and started for the narrow stairs out of the bunkloft.  "Come on Ben-Ben, you can go outside."

The large malamute wagged his tail and gracefully leapt from the mattress and slithered past his mistress to run down the stairs ahead of her.  Charlie laughed and followed, and braced herself for the wintry blast sure to come as she let the animal out to romp into the snow.  What she found as she opened the door took her by surprise.

"Jim!  What the hell?"

The tall man strode masterfully into the small mudroom as the dog wiggled past to get outside.  Charlie closed the door as Jim sat on a bench to remove his boots as if he had been invited in.  He looked up from his task and assessed her, sheepskin slippers and up, longjohns and flannel shirt and sleep-tousled hair.  "You're lookin' good, Charlie.  Lookin' real good."  He chuckled as he pulled on his own slippers, slippers she'd thought of burning.  She wished that she had.

"I don't care how you think I look, Jim.  What the hell are you doing here?"

"My cabin too, Char."  He crossed into the small galley kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out a jar.  "Have you had breakfast?"  He extracted, then bit into, a dill pickle, holding out the jar to her as if limp, salty cucumbers were a suitable food for an hour before the sunrise.

"I don't eat those things at this hour, Jim.  And you know exactly what I mean -- why are you here?  You know...  I told you that I needed time alone and I meant that.  That doesn't mean time with you showing up after four days."

Jim crossed to the fireplace and began sweeping out cold ashes, left from the fire that had burned out during the night.  He said nothing.  Charlie watched him go through the motions of building and lighting a fire, silent and ignoring her, as if this were any morning, as if this was like any of their weekend getaways to the cabin.  Her husband's audacious behavior was annoying, but starting a fight wasn't going to solve this problem.

Charlie opened the door and called "Benny!  Benny come get your breakfast, boy!"  She grabbed one of the dog's towels from the rack behind the door as the snowcovered animal bounded into the door, shaking and snorting happily.  She started to dry him off.  Jim suddenly appeared in the doorway between the mudroom and the interior of the cabin.   

"You need to take better care of the fireplace, Charlie.  You'll burn the place down if you don't clean up after yourself once in a while."

It was a standard Jim tactic, she was a slob, nothing was ever clean or tidy enough for him.  There would always be some dire consequence of her lack of fastidiousness.

"Jim, you need to go home.  I'm completely serious.  Either go home or let me know that you want to be here so that I can go somewhere else."

"Charlie, you don't get to order me around.  You want everything your way.  You're forgetting that I have been more than patient with you.  More than patient.  I could've very well told you to hit the street, you know."

"Fine, Jim, fine."  She went back up to the bunkloft, leaving Jim standing in the kitchen, scooping out kibble for Benny.

She came back down.

With a small handgun.

***

This is how it works: you get 5 words and with these 5 words you have to write an entry. The words might or might not be related. You decide how to combine them, and how long your entry will be. You tag your entry with 5wordchallenge and whatever other tags you like. Finally, you put the words in bold.