Mrs. Stopheles' Revenge

In the Southern United States, when the sun shines while it rains, it’s said that the devil is beating his wife. This is the wife’s story.

You all stood around while it happened—mouths gaping and drops sizzling on your burnt shoulders. No consideration for my bruised skin, my dazed expression, or the slap of his red palm. You were amazed and mildly amused and fully aware of the cause.

Your picnic baskets open, lazing on beach towels, skimming over the surface of a lake—what you thought was a meteorological phenomenon briefly caught your attention. But unlike you I take no pleasure in this day, in this sun shining and this rain falling. I take only abuse. How would you like to share your bed with a barbed tail and a horned head on your breast?

It’s gone too far. I’ve had enough.

Hold tight to your piece of ground. I’ll pluck the earth’s core—his domain— send it hurdling through space and dash it against that forehead, between those obsidian eyebrows, over those inferno eyes.

When I’m through, just call it the second big bang.