The Witch
By Dom Cioffi
It’s customary for me to come home after work and immediately wash dishes. This is something I’ve done for years. I don’t know why; it’s just an activity I have to complete before I relax in to the evening’s activities.
This past week, I came home, dropped my bag by the door and headed into the kitchen sink to get started. I turned on the water, squeezed some dishwashing liquid onto a sponge and reached in to grab the coffee pot, which just happened to be sitting on the top of the dirty pile.
I then took the sponge and, like I have a thousand times before, spun my hand around the interior of the pot to clean the dried coffee stains.
This time, however, something was different.
Having felt a strange sensation, I looked down to see blood on the interior of the rim.
I then noticed that blood was careening down my hand so I quickly grabbed some paper towels and wrapped it up.
I then inspected the coffee pot, eventually discovering a large hole on one side where glass shards were exposed. Without realizing it, I had slid my hand right over the broken glass and sliced the top of my knuckle off!
I waited a moment and then removed the paper towel just long enough to see a dime-sized flap of skin dangling from my thumb. And more blood — lots more blood.
I stood there baffled, reviewing the events that had just transpired, trying to determine how I broke the coffee pot. Then it occurred to me: I didn’t break the coffee pot; the coffee pot had to have been broken before I even picked it up.
As my brain was reconstructing the events of earlier that morning, I confirmed in my own mind that the last time I touched the coffee pot, it was still in the brewer. So that meant only one thing: my wife broke it.
Upon this realization, two questions arose: did she or did she not know that she had broken the glass pot? If she was oblivious, then the whole episode was just a tragic turn of events. But if she did know and simply left it there, well, all hell was about to break loose.
My wife arrived home 10 minutes later to find me in the bathroom writhing in pain since I was pouring straight peroxide directly onto an open wound. As I was digging my nails into my hand trying to offset the intense stinging, with blood streaming down my hand and into the sink, my wife made the obvious inquiry: “Oh my God, what happened!”
Now I admit, I was probably a little biased in my opinion that she knew the pot was broken. So in a very curt (possibly condescending) tone, I blurted out, “Any chance you broke the coffee pot this morning?”
She immediately looked baffled and responded accordingly to my massively judgmental attitude. This, of course, made my already miserable mood more miserable.
Needless to say, it took me two days to get my injury to stop bleeding since every time I changed the bandage, it reopened the wound. Ironically, it also took me two days to get my wife to speak to me again since I was so quick to throw her under the bus. I wouldn’t say she was witch-like in the aftermath of my injury, but she was certainly hovering near witch-in-training status.
This week’s film, “The Witch,” also featured a young woman who may or may not have been working towards an apprenticeship in sorcery.
Set in the puritan period of early America, “The Witch” follows the hardship life of a farming family who are ostracized by the greater community for religious reasons. While they attempt to build a life in the woods of New England, strange events begin to tear the family apart, with everyone thinking someone else is possessed by evil.
Many people are calling this film a classic horror story and one of the best occult movies released in years. And while I will give it credit for building tension without resorting to the traditional scare tactics found in so many horror films, I still found it boring.
And that seems to be the opinion. Some people love this film; others see little worth. I easily fell into the latter category.
Check this one out if you have a penchant for horror and want a taste of something a little different. Just be prepared for very few scary moments and long conversations in a very unfamiliar and, at times, confusing early American dialect.
A dull-as-dishwater “C-” for “The Witch.”
Got a question or comment for Dom? You can email him at [email protected].
