Evelyn stared out the kitchen window willing herself to ignore the breathing coming from the living room. It was a wet labored breathing. She wiped the last dish and set it in the rack. Another breath was pulled from the lungs in the other room.
Until recently Evelyn had never noticed the sound of her husband’s breathing. The past several months however had changed that. The sound snuck up on her slowly. She remembered a night when she woke; it was quiet in the house and she rolled over to fall back to sleep but couldn’t. There was a wheezing sound coming from the other side of the bed. Wheeze. Pause. Whoosh. Wheeze. Pause. Whoosh. She put a pillow over her head, gave him a kick and drifted into a restless sleep.
She’d asked him politely if perhaps he could breathe more quietly. He didn’t seem to be able to. She looked up reasons for heavy breathing on the internet and suggested maybe he seek out the advice of a doctor. Maybe he had asthma or allergies? What if it was something more serious like sleep apnea or a lung infection. Harold brushed off her concerns with a slight wave of the hand, “I’m breathing just like I always have Evelyn. Maybe your ears have become overly sensitive. Perhaps you’re the one who should see a doctor.” He chuckled and patted her on the shoulder as he walked out of the room. Another breath was wrestled from his lungs.
During the day she would busy herself around the house. She would try to drown out the breathing with the vacuum. Their house wasn’t large and therefore the vacuum was only a temporary reprieve. Wheeze. Pause. Whoosh.
She and Harold usually took a walk together in the mornings but now she found herself rising earlier to go without him. Just a half hour of quiet. Lately however, she had started hearing the Wheeze. Pause. Whoosh when she knew he wasn’t anywhere near her. She would turn to look behind her thinking Harold must be trying to catch up only to see a vacant street.
Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. The breathing changed. It was no longer a quiet Wheeze. Pause. Whoosh as it had been in the beginning. It began to mutate. It gurgled like someone sipping the last bits of a drink from their straw. Evelyn couldn’t look at her husband anymore. She avoided being in the same room with him. She had moved to a spare bedroom to sleep.
Harold hadn’t protested when she’d moved her things into the spare room. He hadn’t even asked her why. He had just continued with that wet, bubbling breathing. Evelyn had shut the door to the room, walked over to the nightstand and pulled a pair of earplugs from the drawer. She jammed them into her ears. The breathing was only slightly lessened.
Evelyn began to find it increasingly difficult to focus on anything except the breathing. It grated on her. It made her skin crawl with disgust. The ear plugs no longer seemed to help. In fact, it seemed that when she used them she was actually trapping the sound of Harold in her head.
Evelyn hung the kitchen towel from the oven door and exited the kitchen. She passed Harold and went upstairs to take a shower and try again to hide from the breathing. She ran the water and turned the radio on. Loud. Evelyn was tired. She had stopped sleeping. The breathing had invaded her very being. She tried to think of a way to make it stop. She saw her husband’s straight razor on the edge of the sink. He always said it gave the closest shave. He kept it sharp. The sound of the water running down the drain mixed with the strangled gurgling emanating from her husband. Evelyn didn’t get in the shower. She took the blade and went back downstairs.
Gurgle pfff. Gurgle pfff. Evelyn stood behind The Breather. That’s all she saw now. Not the man she had been married to for almost 55 years. Not the father to their three children. He was just a Breather. Just loud lungs. Lungs that needed to stop being SO LOUD!
One quick motion. Gurgle…. Evelyn slumped to the floor. She released the razor.
Silence.
Tears of relief escaped from Evelyn’s eyes. A small smile crossed her lips.
Then, gurgle pfff.
Image: A safety Razor partly opened from pixabay.com
literally stories 
Hi Rebecca
WP liked this so much that it published three! But I used Evelyn’s husband’s razor on it, thus the first part of this paragraph is now meaningless.
The story is beautiful and Poe would have loved it! Especially the double twist ending.
Leila
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I imagine there are quite a number of readers who readily identify with this problem. Once the sound, being it chewing, breathing, grinding, snorting, whatever becomes noticable it can take over and become the only thing. That is very well observed, even the way that it leads to a form of insanity. The ending however it clever and sad. Thank you – dd
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Sometimes it’s the way they brush their teeth. Sometimes it’s how they eat their food … This was a nice study in how the smallest thing can take you over the edge. I loved the ending!
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Well, that took a nasty turn. I take it he did many things over 55 years to upset Evelyn to the point of … I shouldn’t spoil the ending. A nice buildup of madness on the boil.
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Rebecca
Yeah, I had to read it twice to realize who killed whom. Too bad she couldn’t just tie herself to the mast like Odysseus and his crew. But that was myth. Snoring is real and repulsive, unlike the sirens’ song. Nice job. — Gerry
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Well, that’s a very realistic story. And the end made me cringe in my chair! Well done!
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Hi Rebecca,
I can’t stop giggling.
It reminds me of Sam Stone played by the brilliant Danny Devito talking about his wife Barbara’s (The amazing Devine Miss M) mother in ‘Ruthless People’
The quotes in this film are legendary. If any of you haven’t seen it, please give it a look. I think this may have been Bill Pullmans first film??? He was brilliant!!!
This is a well constructed and brilliantly thought out piece of writing!!
All the very best.
Hugh
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