"Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder Affects One Point Six Percent of Women" by SJ Townend

The rain slashes down. She’s cold, adrift amongst it. At least it is night, she thinks, the blanket of which hides more than my sadness. Standing there, naked, drained, she’s relieved she left her front door off the latch, ever hopeful he’ll return. The amber-dandelion glow of a streetlamp helps her locate the handle. She pushes the door open, runs upstairs.

The bathroom light does not click on. It is forever broken. So, in habit, she sets a-glow a corner candle. Familiarity guides her, fits her like a glove. She is not one for change. The shower above the bathtub however, does click on. The thrum of hissing water softens her sobs. Tears, fuggy air, soupy mist. She steps into the bath, under the hot water, closes her eyes, rests her back against the tiled wall. Warmth embraces her. Hot jets, the only arms around her since he left. Impossible, yet infinite drive propels her on, keeps her head above the ever-rising water. There’s the possibility one day he might return, is why she always leaves the door off the latch: he might push the door open and run upstairs, save her from the darkness.

Under the rushing water, her gold band is loose enough for her to free her finger, but she is not ready for her finger and the ring to become two separate entities, never will be. She holds her ring on, closes her eyes, cries, fights off the lick of jaded thoughts, despite knowing her situation won’t change. In dreams, she feels the same, although she’s no longer sure if waking time is waking time or if all of her time is part of a dream, even in this account of it all, written by the woman as if she is not the woman. She and I remain unsure.
He’d placed his wedding band on the kitchen counter the day he ended things, left without a goodbye. Left a note with his ring. Her heart had flooded with midnight pain. The dark note still sits under his ring. Will stay there forever. She knows though, through his actions, he’d ended things much earlier than that day. His path had split off, a tangent, some time before. He’d not wanted to spend a moment longer with her despite, in vows, promising eternity.

She opens her eyes and the ghosts of the darkness loom. She reaches for the blade to cut free the darkness. No need. Oestrogen surge. Gushing water once transparent, clouds. Vermillion tongues trickle down her thigh. She tilts her head back. Relief. Wet heat pounds her face, drags her cheek flesh down. Sadness and red rinse away.

The ceiling light flickers on-off. In that moment, she sees the screw which has become loose, which anchors the light fitting to the ceiling above the shower in which she’ll forever try to wash away. Could it be the loose screw why she wets her red self clean? Why she leaves the door off the latch, hopeful he might return?

She steps out. Rust-water drip-drops from her body. Pitter-patter, across the landing, she retrieves the ladder which he’d said was only for the loft.

Drags the ladder, props it up, ascends. She reaches up, touches the fitting, tries to fix it. It comes away in her hand. New hope whispers from the space left behind. She stretches down, balances the fitting on the basin, then, gripping the ladder, climbs further up.

With hands and arms and bones and muscles that feel every inch of tiredness from her endless, circular toil, she pulls herself up into the future space which calls to her, behind the fitting, below the roof.

One, two, three candle-lit steps below become smaller. She lugs herself up into the vent, the vent in the loft which he had said the ladder was for, the ladder with infinite rungs, rungs of a journey never to conclude.

She squeezes herself through the dark channel, a liminal freedom between ceiling and loft she did not know existed yet, at the back of her mind, always knew existed. She bends forward, over, moves. On hands and knees, in the absence of light, she crawls along the vent until she sees a dim glow ahead, senses it with her pineal. A gold sphere, a noise of almost-light calls to her, speaks promises of eternity, shines at the end of the tunnel in the vent. She lowers herself down and through this wet ring of gold to discover the ring is the glow of a dim streetlamp. Feet shirk on wet grass. She finds herself outside of her house, not too far from her front door, which she has left unbolted in the hope that one day, he might come home.

The rain slashes down. She’s cold, adrift amongst it. At least it is night, she thinks, the blanket of which hides more than my sadness. Standing there, naked, drained, she’s relieved she left her front door off the latch, ever hopeful he’ll return. The amber-dandelion glow of a streetlamp helps her locate the handle. She pushes the door open, runs upstairs.
The bathroom light does not click on. It is forever broken. So, in habit, she sets a-glow a corner candle. Familiarity guides her, fits her like a glove. She is not one for change. The shower above the bathtub however, does click on. The thrum of hissing water softens her sobs. Tears, fuggy air, soupy mist. She steps into the bath, under the hot water, closes her eyes, rests her back against the tiled wall. Warmth embraces her. Hot jets, the only arms around her since he left. Impossible, yet infinite drive propels her on, keeps her head above the ever-rising water. There’s the possibility one day he might return, is why she always leaves the door off the latch: he might push the door open and run upstairs, save her from the darkness. 

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SJ Townend, an author of dark fiction, has stories published with Vastarien, Ghost Orchid Press, Gravely Unusual Magazine, Dark Matter Magazine, and Timber Ghost Press. Her first horror collection, Sick Girl Screams, is out Winter, 2024 (Brigid’s Gate Press) and her second horror collection, Your Final Sunset, is coming in 2025 (Sley House Press). Twitter:@SJTownend

www.sjtownend.com 

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