the bearded lady

He didn’t know how she did it. Some kind of feminine inner strength, he supposed. He stood in the doorway of the bathroom, his dressing gown hanging open, and watched as his wife scrubbed the toilet. Something genetic, maybe. All he knew was that he couldn’t stand the thought of doing that, scrubbing away in the loo. Disgusting. But he helped in other ways, of course. She only had to ask.

He tried to talk to her while she worked, telling her about something he’d watched on television last night, but it annoyed him the way she kept her back to him the whole time. She doesn’t understand me, he said to himself. She’s not listening. Finally he got bored and told her to get a move on so he could jump in the shower. She sighed, stood up and flushed the toilet.

Will you please clean it after you get out? she said.

He laughed. It’s a shower, he told her, with rising intonation, like hello? It’s water and soap? It’s already clean? He sniffed, and the smell of bleach filled his nostrils. He admitted he liked the house to be kept clean. He just didn’t see why she had to be so obsessed about it all.

You’re a fucking child, his wife said, slamming the door behind her. He winked at his reflection. That’s her out of the way for half an hour.

He reached up to twist the dial of the shower, and as he did so a violent pain gripped his bowels. He doubled over, grabbing at his stomach, and the pain came again. Another contraction that made the sweat pop out all over his body. Jesus. He sat himself on the toilet, expecting a mighty volley of shit to come flying out of him, but in the next moment he was on the floor again, fallen in pain as his gut wrenched open, and from out of his arse shot an enormous crop of bright green feathers. He whimpered, The silky feathers rose luminous, spreading out from his backside, raising their round eyes in the long, iridescent plumes.

He was on all fours, the peacock’s tail raised kaleidoscopically over him, when his wife opened the bathroom door. God, she said. My god.

Look at me, he said. He wept. Look at me, please.