An amateur's attempt to write a suspense story:

I wanted to write a poem in spanish, my mother tongue, but I failed; so I proceeded to use the prose to write about "her" but then I ended up making a story and noticed right in the middle of my writing that I was writing a suspense one. Enjoy it's a little of Edgar (Allan Poe) mixed with Anne (Rice):

" The cuckoo clock shows the 1300 as he likes to call it. The heat is rising. The wood is crackling. The damage of the sun is running it’s course. –“Someday this house will evaporate into smoke” – she thinks.

The landscape is dry. She’s there in the porch, smacking the flies, fighting her angst, sucking in the heat, sitting again in her rocking chair. Even though she is in pain, she made sure she woke up early that morning because she’d like to be there for his welcome.

She cleaned the house well, but for some reason the dust is back. Tom is going to be upset. It must be the hot wind of the desert, pulling it back in, after she brooms it all out. Bored to the bone, she is hating the desert, however, it’s the house he built for her; based on gratitude “she loves it”...He’s running late. Last week, he had left to the city to get provisions and had gotten home two days later.

Drunk and empty handed. He was tough and rough, a country man, yet he liked the pleasures of the filthy city. He hit her too hard that day, but it was her fault, dinner wasn't ready. She fell through the stairs but she's ok now; after seeing her in pain he apologized and cuddled with her. Tom really knows how to make it right in the end. He is good man, just that alcohol brings the worst out of him, like anyone else. He was very upset, said he'd never meant to hurt her.

–“Today he’ll come”- she says, but nobody listens, she’s alone there waiting. She checks on the food, because he doesn’t like his stew too dried.

-"My mother’s recipe must be respected" he has always said. So she has been trying to keep up with the legacy.

She checks out the clock, it’s getting late. She goes back to the cleaning, but there is more dust, the stew looks dry and a stench is coming up. He’s not here yet, but he will be. She is going back to the porch.

-"No matter how much I clean, the dust will keep coming back"- she says to herself.

She is hurting a lot, that fall has affected her motion. Hours keep passing by, and it's getting dark, the stench is becoming painful, after all the dusting the house remains the same. She's tired of waiting for Tom.-"Those women again, the lust and the alcohol!!! The seed of the devil!! Oh Tom, what are you doing to yourself?"- she cries...

He’s drunker than the last time. He falls on the doorstep, and takes another sip of his cheap whisky. He’s crying like a child, yet she stares in fear. She tries to feed herself some courage. She has spent her whole day waiting for him, she has spent her whole life sacrificed for him.

– Oh Tom, why do you keep this up?- She tells him. But he is ignoring her like always. He picks himself up as he can and walks inside the house. She follows him.

–Why do you keep doing this to ourselves?!- she screams.

But Tom is busy trying to stir the dried stew. He continues to sob and cry. He doesn’t even look in her direction. He takes the mop, throws some cleaning liquids on the floor and starts cleaning the bottom of the stairs.

He screams: -“Shut up!, I don’t want to hear you anymore!”.

-“Well, you will have to, for the rest of your life!”- she replies.-“I’m tired Tom, of not been able to keep up to your expectations, tired of cleaning, tired of cooking, tired of waiting for a man I’ve never had to come home!”-

He kneels on the floor. He stares hard at the bottom of the stairs.

-“Stop! Ok. I’m sorry” – he says.-“I never meant to hurt you so bad”.

He stands again, he turns to her, yet he’s not looking at her. He’s looking over her, at the closet, at …the stench. Surprised by knowing the origin of that horrible smell she follows him again as he walks towards the closet door, still crying, still sobbing.

-Just shut up, please!- He screams again. Yet she’s aware she hasn’t talked in a period of minutes.

He finally opens the closet door and sits in the floor. She stares in awe as he hugs a stained duffel bag and whispers: -“I love you dear. I swear I’ll never hurt you anymore. Never again”

THE END"

I hope you enjoyed the twist, if you were of those who thought "she" had killed Tom.

Laterz!