THE DINNER PARTY

It started as a tickle in his throat. He looked around the dining room, and saw that everyone was staring at him. He tried to suppress the inevitable, but was not successful. He coughed.

A large man with soft brown eyes and normally an easy way about him glared. A woman beside him with mousy brown hair, and a ridiculous hat drew in a breath and held it. The coughing man's wife, the woman he had spent most of his life with, looked on with concern.

He coughed again.He had always had a narrow throat. His tension headache,which he had been trying to relax,tightened its grip on the back of his head. His ears began the clicking sounds, which lead to his jaw opening and closing to try to release the built up pressure in his ear canals. He coughed again, and again.

The large man rose from the table and moved toward him. The woman with the mousey brown hair said “No, don't get so close to him, dear.”

His wife rushed to get him a glass of water, hoping she would get to him before the large man. The man was literally growling, like an animal, like a dog, or a bear. Spit was spurting from his mouth as he screamed at the coughing man to stop, “for god's sake please stop, I don't want to do this but you leave me no choice!”

His arms extended toward the cougher, his fingers grabbing him by the coughing throat, and he forcefully squeezed. The coughing man began to choke, his eyes streaming tears, as his body was wrung like a wet rag. His wife took the glass of water and threw it at the large man, then she broke the glass on the table and tried to jam the jagged edges into the large man's neck. The large man continued to choke the coughing man. The women with the mousey brown hair grabbed the wife by the hair, yanking her off the large man with the broken glass in his neck.

The coughing man stopped coughing. His eyes were closed, his neck red, and blue. The large man slumped to the ground, blood spurting in the air like a small fountain. He had stopped choking.

The two women were weeping, and clawing at each other.

Just then the waiter entered the room. “Who ordered the duck?

I'm so sorry, but the duck is all gone.

Would the chicken do?”