WfW ~ with love, to infinity

This writing challenge was started by Delores a long time ago. Computer issues led her to bow out and now Words for Wednesday is provided by a number of people and has become a movable feast.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write. Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music, or an image. What we do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore... We can use some or all of the prompts, and mixing and matching are encouraged.

Some of us put our creations in comments on the host's post, and others post on their own blog. It would be wonderful if as many people as possible joined in the fun, which includes cheering on the other participants. The prompts will be [here] and are provided by Sean Jeating.

    I didn't intend for it to become a daily occurrence.  In fact, I really didn't intend to interact with him more than just one time.  I was simply trying to be friendly.  The human was grieving, and I overheard him while I was passing through the cemetery.

    His sobs were quite heartbreaking and I only wanted to comfort him.   At first, I just rested near him, nodding with empathy and sending him waves of comfort with my yellow Dahlia aura.  But it just made him cry even harder.   How was I to know that the Dahlia was his wife's favorite flower?

    He left not long after that but came back the very next day.  Judging by the dark bags under his eyes, his grieving must have continued through the night.  Such a devoted husband I'd seldom seen in other human gentlemen.  I was intrigued.  I made the decision then and there to reach out through the veil to his wife and find out more about their love.

    What she told me, however, greatly changed my opinion of him.

    The grave where he sat mourning her loss was not where her body was buried.  Oh no.  For this human was as much of a monster as I was.  He had married her for her money, you see.  Trillions of dollars.  Then after two decades of marriage, he killed her.  He dismembered her and chopped her into fine little pieces which he fed to her several colonies of feral cats.  Her "children" as she referred to them.  When all evidence of his evil deed was gone, he took steps to create an alibi for himself before he reported her missing.  He knew it would only be a matter of time before she would be declared dead and he would be the richest man on the planet.

    That was his plan at least.

    The grief he expressed was not for the loss of her but for the loss of her quadrillions.

    He patiently waited the seven years the state required before he could request that she be declared dead.  Faithfully feeding her "children."  Faithfully posting missing advertisements on television, in newspapers, and in magazines.  Ever the bereaved spouse, he cried on cue during interviews and subsisted on the quite substantial allowance he had been receiving during their marriage when she was "not missing."

    It never occurred to him to save any of that allowance.  All of his needs were met otherwise.  The houses they had lived in between were paid for, accountants handled the utility payments, and every morning he would select a menu for the day that the chef would shop for and prepare.  For seven years, he traveled extensively, under the guise of searching for her.  He spent extravagantly,  always on himself, never donating, never gifting, never giving.  All while her estate continued to grow in value behind the scenes.

    With the death certificate finally in hand, he requested her attorneys to read her will, so confident was he that he would be the sole heir of her estate.  But his late wife had not inherited her vast fortune as many speculated.  She was quite a brilliant businesswoman and investor, not to mention the fact that she hadn't fallen off the turnip truck the night before her loving husband proposed to her.

    In the absence of a body for burial, her entire estate including all houses, businesses, investments, and all personal items such as clothing, jewelry, and vehicles, purchased with funds from the businesses and investments ~ which included her devoted husband's allowance ~ were to be auctioned off in support of multiple animal charities.

    If he had invested some of his allowances over the years before and after she vanished into thin air, he might have been able to pick up some of the pieces of his shattered life after the will was released to the public.  But instead, he was left naked and homeless, hiding in an alley with some of his wife's "children."

    Children whom I now control, with her blessings, to scratch and torture him at all hours of the day and night.  No matter where he hides.  To the brink of insanity ... from the wife who will love him to infinity.