Writer’s Block

“There you are; you scoundrel!” She barks at me with a vicious growl. I spring up from my project and meet her eyes, “Scoundrel?” I raise my eyebrows and my hand to my heart then pucker my lips “of what misdeed have I performed over you today?” The young woman, made to be my wife, approached my workstation on the side of the house, “you are a scoundrel in all your fiber and being!” “What could I have possibly done,” I tease her, “speak you wretch.” “You!” Her stare could strike down any man and this excited me, “Eugene Fyoder!” Her voice cracks a little as all the air from her lungs leaves her as she emphasizes every other word, “Arrived home last night in the worst drunken state I have ever seen of man!” “Oh what tragedy!” I cry out and fall, as though a fainting woman, to the end of her dress. “What sins I have! How can you forgive me for spending an evening with ale and not cradled in your arms, my wife?” I stare into her eyes just as a puppy does once they have been caught next to their misdeeds. “It is not that you were merely inebriated, Eugene!” She kicks me off her dress. “It is what you did and what I heard of your happening last night!” Her voice raises as if to suggest I have committed high treason. I jump to my feet, “is there something my wife knows of what I have done, apart from sitting and singing the tavern songs of cheer and glee?” “As a matter of fact I do!” She fires the last word like a bullet through my chest, “you!” She advances toward me. “Me!” I mimic as I smile and turn this foot advance into a tango back walk. “YOU!” Her face turns as red as a tomato ready to be picked from the field. “Only in such a super state, that you ran outside with Alexander and Ian to tip the neighbor’s cow!” She stops as I fall to the floor in a hysterical laugh. Caroline throws her hands on her hips and huffs. “You scoundrel!” She reminds me. “You are lucky he thinks it was his own boy or he’d have your rear end to skin,” her voice turns to pride, “and I would not hesitate to let him.” I stop laughing and raise myself to meet her eyes, “you would not dare…” “Oh I would.” She rises on her toes as an attempt to meet my height, meeting my eyes and begins to squint her own as though to pierce my soul. Oh, her face is stronger and more straight than any other I have met. She is strong, my Caroline, not like the soft, weak women of the village. No, my wife is hard as stone and as true as an archer’s arrow. The tension bubbles up as our faces inch closer in all sincerity. I cannot hold such a stance. Quickly and with great force, I give her a kiss on the lips and hug her. “Let go of me!” Caroline is held in my tight grip, Caroline is held in my tight grip and laughs as she screams, “This is not funny! You are such a hooligan!” Her feet lift from the ground as I spin her in one big circle. I let her down on her feet and release her of my embrace. She slaps my chest and exclaims, “you are a mad man, you know that! Any official would have half a mind to lock you up and throw away the key!” “Ah, then is it a good thing that neither you nor I have half a brain to do such a thing.” She gasps and starts in a full charge to me and I run into the hay pile to bring her down with me atop the hay. I wrap myself up to constrain her from doing any damage to myself. “Calm down, my wife, there is no need to be so aggressive.” She stops and lays there in my arms on the hay. “You will be the death of me Eugene, someday woosh I will be gone and you will have no one to set you on the right path.”