Asbestos Breath
by Alex Creece
She coughed. She spluttered. She wheezed into a sleeve still dusty from all those years within that toxic household. The lining of her throat crawled up the back of her mouth, viscous and grainy upon her tongue. She swilled the mucus around her palate before hocking it to the pavement. It seethed against the cement, powdery clumps bursting within it like popping candy.
She walked faster, her breath shaking with ailment and anger. He had made her so frail— as toxic an environment as the one he had imprisoned her in. Her body was now a manufacturer of miscarriage, home only to burls of coagulant blood and mutated bronchioles. Once she escaped, he had boarded up the basement as if she had never survived and suffered within that carcinogenic capsule. This was her only chance. She would soon be admitted to the hospital for the very last time. She needed to do it now.
As she turned down his street, she began to salivate at the thought of her revenge. A film of phlegm accumulated on her palate once more, noxious and ready. She knocked.
His eyes were familiar, but his skin was fading beyond recognition. He was tired. She paused for a moment to smirk. She was almost doing him a favour as she pressed her pale, cracked lips hard upon him, forcing her tongue through the unexpecting purse of his mouth. The texture was wet and dry, caked with the grit that was poisoning her every tissue, and leaky with the immuno fluids unable to save her.
And now, unable to save him, either.
She licked his ear for good measure.
“Just thought I’d stop by and powder my nose.”
The Molotov Cocktail 