Horror - Flash

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. 'Til Death Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

‘TIL DEATH

Quaint, that was the word most often used to describe a wedding like ours. Married in a barn, in front of a select group: friends and immediate family, no coworkers, no cousins, no stragglers from the past. Quaint.

My days officially numbered, and they’d said, “Quaint.”

At first, I thought it was my imagination.

“Hey, snookums, try this, it’s a recipe I saw on Kitchen Hero,” she said, her pouty mouth bringing forth urges, willing me to comply.

“It’s pink,” I said, frothy moustache over my lip, thinking it wasn’t from Kitchen Hero, and that she had her shows confused.

My body trimmed.

“Looking great,” that’s what was said most. Five, ten, fifteen kilograms. “Looking great, what’s your secret?”

I smiled, didn’t know, worried once I’d lost twenty; sought medical advice after twenty-five. My doctor was baffled.

Dr. Pillsbury pushed up his glasses and told me, “Stress, maybe.”

My beautiful, perfect wife, long amber hair, not a blemish on her milky flesh, smelling of flowers and dreams, my wife and her secrets.

“What’s that?” I asked as she stuffed an aged leather satchel under the bed.

“Nothing, snookums, you hungry?”

I was, starving as always.

I’d lost another ten kilos. The doctor informed me I’d shrunk four inches.

“Four inches!”

“Don’t fret, snookums, they might have something with that stress theory.”

I watched my hair recede, my skin loosen and then retract around my shrinking body. My perfect wife eyeing me. She bore a new and greedy glare. Whatever she saw in the change agreed with her.

I thought about things like that just yesterday: at least my wife likes my new look.

That was yesterday.

This morning I looked inside the satchel. What I saw was something I think fits somewhere between incredible and horrifying.

What I saw was my future.

I’m exactly half the man I was and those shrunken men in that satchel promise I have a ways to go.

She never told me about her exes, I think maybe that’s why she likes quaint weddings.

XX