A short drabble imagining Serena's response to Fred's dark fate. Rated M for disturbing imagery and controversial religious themes.
The odor assails her nostrils even before her fingertips can brush the manila-shielded bulk.
Mere moments ago, Serena Joy Waterford had been flooded with a sudden rush of nostalgia, a warm excitement pulsing briefly through her veins – the kind anyone would experience upon glimpsing the soft, classical yellow clasped within her tightening grip.
It adds insult to injury.
If but for a moment, she'd been brought back to another life, one in which her days were spent scrolling through various sites in strange, largely unvisited corners of the web, careful lest her searches wind up in the data pools collected by the larger corporate chains; clicking here and there until a series of code confirmed the ugly parchment was well on its way to her doorstep. Her purchases began just as books, non-fiction and biography intended strictly for research purposes. It was a necessary sin, or so she told herself. Nothing more.
Until it was.
Oh, the thrill of running the smooth pads of her fingers over the cotton-esque surface, the since-dried ink inscribing her name and address still ripe with the crisp, tangy scent of perfume.
It is not the olfactory sensation assailing her today.
A gentle scrape sets her teeth on edge, plated gold rolling unimpeded between stationery folds. It's the larger, thicker object within that's holding them apart. Without chancing another thought, Serena pries at the metal tabs, and is at once consumed by the acridity of the envelope's contents.
Once, during a more recent life, Serena had opened her refrigerator door to a similar scent – and had nearly retched right there on the polished kitchen floor. She had been certain, the following morning, to reward Rita's negligence with a curt, well-earned slap.
How strange it now seems, a whole world away, that the rotting meat of her husband's flesh would churn her stomach to a rhythm so contrastingly sweet. Infatuated, she pictures maggots writhing through the severed finger, rust corroding the smoothness of his ring – and smiles. A prayer glides past her twitching lips, a blasphemy for which she'll surely burn, yet in the fragrant haze engulfing her wearied heart, Serena Joy cannot be bothered to fear for her immortal soul.
Does perfect love not cast out fear?
Does love not cover a multitude of sins?
"Thank you," she whispers into the godless darkness, "June Osborne."
