Cause It's Been A While

This Week’s Theme: Start your entry with a fire. Acrid smoke billowed up from the blazing pyre, choking the air with a pungent, faintly unpleasant smell. Julia's eyes watered but she continued hacking at the arm chair with her axe, each whack causing a new hemorrhage of stuffing and ripped fabric to spill onto the ground. When she had worked a piece free she hefted it onto the pyre, laughing desperately as the flames lept to encompass the new fuel. She continued working at a steady pace until the chair, and the rest of the jumble of furniture on the lawn, disappeared into the flames. With the last piece tossed on the fire, Julia stepped back, admiring the way the dancing flames lit the front of their dream house. Four bedrooms, four and a half baths, a huge kitchen perfect for entertaining, and the sunroom and deck across the back. She and Rick had known at once that it was where they wanted to raise their as yet unborn children. Julia snorted and shook her head, dragging her mind back to the present, not the insane day dream of seven years ago. She watched as a leg from the dining room table disappeared into unrecognizable ash and began to laugh, unable to stop. Some detached part of her mind whispered urgently that she might have truly gone too far this time, but the rest of her remembered only the sight of Rick and Diane, the oh-so-perky next door neighbor, giving the guest bed a once over. She turned at the sound of a car in the driveway, her laughter trailing off as Rick slammed the door and stalked toward her. "What do you think you're doing, Julia? Have you completely lost your mind?" He reached for her, fury vibrating off his arms. Julia grabbed the axe from where it rested at her feet and arched a brow, her voice barely audible over the popping of the flames, "Try it Rick. Just try it." She hefted the weight of the axe, considering, "We did say til death us do part." He stepped back, his fury still visible. "Just sign the papers, Julia. We'll split everything." "Oh, I already split everything." Julia grinned and gestured to the fire, "Split right down the middle." She laughed, adjusting her grip on the axe handle, "Well, everything but one very important thing." Rick's eyes widened, "You're completely insane." He glanced at the neighbor's house, wondering why Diane, or someone, hadn't called the police. "The Nesters are out of town this week, remember?" She gestured toward the house to the left of theirs, "And having only two neighbors was such a great selling point for this house." Julia's eyes flitted toward the fire then back to Rick's, "And Diane, well, Diane is busy cooking." Hefting the axe once more, she brought it down on his skull grinning at the satisfying noise, "Perhaps you should go and join her." Julia dropped the axe onto the flames then bent and hefted Rick to the top of the pyre. Tilting her head and considering, she squirted another bottle of lighter fluid onto the bonfire then pulled a lawn chair close and sat. After a moment, she rummaged around on the grass near her chair and, smiling, poked the hangar, preloaded with a marshmallow, into the flames.
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