fiction ShortStory wriashorstorwe
Wet pants
He went upstairs to find a place to
change. The bathroom was noisily occupied so he went into an
empty bedroom, one of the girls’ rooms, and hung his wet trousers
on a doorknob.
Just then the door opened and his niece came
in from the roof, a dog on a leash in her hand. He scurried
around a corner of the low dresser on one side of the room. She was wrapped in
a plaid flannel bathrobe which came down to her knees.
He gave a little cough. “Sorry, could you
hand me my slacks over there, Liana?”
She looked at him, not moving. “What are you doing there,
Uncle Sid?”
“Liana, please, the pants.” She picked up his cords by one
of the belt loops. “You can just toss them over here.”
“Why are they all wet? Did you do something?” She held
the pants out away from herself and experimentally tried swinging them, but
they seemed to be a little heavier than she expected. The small dog, freed from
her grasp during this, started sniffing at the drops of water coming down from
the pant leg.
“Yeah, well, there seems to be some kind of leak in
the seat, ah, that is, around the toilet seat downstairs, and they got a little
moist. It's just water. I, uh, was just going to change into something else.” Sid's
voice did a funny thing like it was going to crack.
Liana swung the heavy pants again and let go this time,
so they kind of plopped down a little way from where he was crouching. Some items
fell out of the pockets, his wallet, some small change, and his belt buckle
clanked heavily when it hit the floor. He reached out for the nearest pant leg,
missed. The dog gave a little jump and made a sound in its throat, like an
experimental sort of bark, but then just stood stiffly staring at Sid.
“You were going to change? Into what? There aren't any
clothes in my room for you.”
“Well no, I know that, I wasn't going to take anything
of yours. I thought that maybe you had some old pants of your Daddy's around
still that I could use.” Sid got down on all fours, his hindquarters still pushed
up behind the dresser, and this time he was able to snag the damp corduroys with
the tips of his fingers and drag them towards himself. More stuff spilled from
the pockets, keys, something wrapped in plastic.
Liana sat down on the floor, reaching out toward the
dog who ignored her. Sid noticed a long black and blue mark on the side of her
pale calf almost as dark as the bathrobe.
“No. There's nothing of his left. Some of his things we burnt.”
“Really?” He started to straighten out the trousers which had
gotten twisted and partly inside-out, still kneeling kind of doubled-over on the floor.
The dog came forward one, two steps, with its head and tail down.
“Nothing.”
He started to stand up to put the pants on but stopped
and knelt back down. “Okay. Well then. So, ah, yeah, I was just looking, thinking
of looking for something dry, and came up here, and that's it. That's where we
are.” Liana was looking at him now, not at the dog, and looked like she might have
been just about to say something, as he held the pants up in front of himself
half-squatting. “That's exactly it. What?”
“What what?”
“Nothing, I just thought you were going to say….”
“He was bigger than you. His clothes wouldn't have fit,
and it's all burnt.”
“Oh, right, Brent, that is, your Daddy. Wouldn't have fit.”
He coughed again, twice, and when he sniffled, the dog began to growl suddenly.
Liana pulled at the belt of her plaid robe bathrobe.
“I'll turn around, so you can get your wet pants back on, and then we're going to
go down and mop that bathroom, and then….”
He waited, looking back into her eyes so dark they looked
almost black. “Then?”
“I haven't decided yet.”