Stress

So this is my latest short story on the effects of stress. Enjoy!


A Pirate’s Crisis


Sara’s nails were close to non-existent as she waited nervously for her husband to come home. The phone call from his boss earlier had sent her into panic mode. Tom, her husband’s boss, hadn’t said much except that he was going to give Steven some time to get better and that her husband was being driven home. She asked what had happened, but Tom had hung up without answering. If it weren’t ten a.m., Sara would be making herself a martini.
Was he fired or ill? Why had she heard laughing in the background of the call? Sara’s questions piled up as time slowly passed.
Sara looked down at the flooring to make sure that her maniacal pacing wasn’t wearing out the wood floor when she heard the front door open. Sara raced to the living room. “What happened? Are you . . .” The words ran from her mind as she caught sight of her husband standing in the door.
Steven’s sleeves to his black Armani suit coat and the bottom of his pant legs had been ripped off and his sky blue tie was tied around his head. Sara assumed her poor husband had been beat up at work, but she couldn’t figure out why there appeared to be some yellow sticky notes stapled to the tie, covering his right eye.
“Ahoy, me lover!” Steven flung his suitcase high in the air as if brandishing a sword.
Sara’s worry turned to shock as she took in the full picture. “You’re drunk.”
“Ah, me lass, not a touch o’ whiskey has graced me parched lips.” Steven tossed his suitcase on the leather couch and strode over to his wife. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close to kiss her, but Sara pushed him away.
There wasn’t any scent of alcohol on his breath, but she didn’t immediately rule out drugs. Sara thought she‘d disposed of the Vicodin from her latest nip ‘n’ tuck. “Seriously Steven, what’s going on? Did something go wrong with the big merger?”
Steven had been working on a multi-million dollar merger at work for the last couple of months, working well over a hundred hours each week. She hadn’t seen him much, but she knew when they got through the next couple of weeks, Steven would end up a vice president of one of the largest publishing houses in the United States. Then she and Steven could focus traveling the world together and perhaps starting a family.
“Nay, me busty lass. I’ve had me a change of heart.” He stepped back and thrust his fist to his heart. “There’ll be no more of the fancy-pants land lubber life for me!” Steven grabbed for his wife again, but she slapped his hand away.
“Have you lost your mind, or is this one of your weird role playing fantasies? I told you when we got married, there is nothing romantic or sexy about dressing up and playing make believe.”
Steven held his head back and laughed heartedly. “Arrg, my saucy wench! No fever o’ the mind that has touched me. I’ve made up me mind that the high seas as pirate be the life fer . . .umm . . .us.” Steven placed his hands proudly on his hips and stared off in the direction of some imaginary magnificent ship.
“Awesome. So you have lost your mind.”
Sara sat down on the coffee table and buried her head in her hands. When she looked up, her husband still stood gazing off in the distance. She wanted to snatch the yellow sticky pad from over his eye. Instead she reached out and grabbed her husband’s hand from his hip. “Sweety.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “I love you.”
“Arrg, so you’re comin’ ‘round to the thought o’ bein’ me wench on the high seas?”
Sara smiled insincerely at Steven. “I love you, but if you call me wench one more time, I promise dear, that I will drop kick you.” Sara took another deep breath. “You know I support you in anything you want to do in life.”
Steven broke out a huge smile, but Sara held up her hand. “We are not pirates. If you want to buy a boat and pretend to be Captain Feathersword on the weekends . . . by yourself . . . then by all means, have at it. But don’t imagine that I will be giving up our life and sailing around the world with you because you’re having some mid-life crisis.”
“Well shiver me timbers!” Steven jumped up on the coffee table and scowled at his wife. “I’ll not have such mutiny on me watch! It’s the plank for you, me bonny lass!”
Sara’s jaw dropped to the floor as he continued to scowl at her. Sara knew there was only one thing she could do. She slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone and dialed the phone as her husband looked on in bewilderment.

* * * * *

“Well, Mrs. Peak, it was a good thing you contacted us when you did.” The doctor looked back through the window of the tiny room. “It was obvious that the stress of his life had reached its limit on the poor man.”
Sara gazed through the window at her husband as he sat in the chair working on a puzzle. It was heartbreaking seeing the once proud man locked away in the tiny cell of the mental institution. “So did the treatment finally work? Is he going to be okay? Can he come home?”
“Oh, absolutely. I told you that the forth round of electric shock therapy would do the trick.” The doctor reached for the handle and opened the door. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”
Sara walked into the room and was greeted with a warm smile from her husband and immediately wanted to run and hug the man, but she hesitated. Frankly, she was surprised that the poor man wasn’t drooling all over himself as her friends had warned.
“Sweety. How are you?” Sara spoke softly in fear that he would erupt in pirate talk again.
“Oh, Sara!” Steven jumped from his chair and embraced his wife. “I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through.”
Sara nearly burst into tears at the sound of her husband’s normal vernacular.
The doctor looked to Steven. “Mr. Peak, do you think you are ready to go home?”
“I’ve never been more ready in my life.” Steven clutched his wife’s hand and reached out and shook the doctor’s hand firmly.
After gathering Steven’s things and signing the release forms, they left the institution ready to start over together. When they found their car, Sara turned to her husband and he could see the glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Thank you for doing this.”
Steven smiled and said, “I don’t know what happened to me. I am just glad that you and I could get through it.”
“I talked to your boss; he said that everyone is excited to have you back to work. He said that the merger went through, and they would love to have you come back to work and take on the vice-president position.”
Stephen kissed his wife and opened her door for her. She kissed him on the cheek and gracefully sat down. Steven closed the door and made his way around the car, stopping at the rear of the vehicle. He reached into his pocket, looked down at his hand smiling wickedly. “Yo ho ho. A pirate’s life fer me.” Steven placed the blue tie with the yellow sticky notes eye patch back into his pocket and walked to his door, feeling prepared to take on his new role as the Pirate King of Minnesota.