Blaine Rudd forced himself up out of the chair and stretched himself tall. He walked around the empty bedroom and took a deep breath, which did nothing but irritate his nostrils with the smell of cheap stale perfume.
"That is that, then" he mused to himself. "She gets the lion's share of the money, a large bag of jewels, the entire tub of leftover artichoke jalapeno dip, and what remains of her dignity. I get..." He counted the money in his wallet and pockets. "...$287.35, a small puka shell choker, a fruitcake that has been on the top shelf of the hall closet for lord knows how long, and all the impossible to refold travel maps I've collected over the years."
He reflexively took another deep breath, irritating his nostrils again.
"And so it goes", he thought to himself as he folded the last pair of his underwear and placed them in his small suitcase. "Nine years of enduring the worst morning breath in recorded history, and constantly lying about how enjoyable repeatedly binge-watching season 6 of One Tree Hill is, all for naught."
He walked sullenly down the hall leading to the front door, turned to take one last look at the home he had lived in longer than anyone had picked in the betting pool at work, and then quietly opened the door and took his first steps as an unattached, unobligated free man since...since forever he reckoned, being as how they had married while he was still living with his parents.
Little could he imagine that in less that 6 weeks he would be onboard a tramp steamer headed for Tasmania, in the employ of a wealthy Chinese shopping mall owner searching for her runaway husband.
Mainly due to his lack of imagination, which was part of the reason his ex-wife had left him.
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